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THE  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

OF   THE 

EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY 

BY 

W.    M.  THACKERAY 


EDITED  WITH  AN  INTRODUCTION  AND  EXPLANATORY 
AND  CRITICAL  NOTES 


WILLIAM    LYON    PHELPS 

A.M.  (Harvard)  Ph.D.  [Yak) 
Assistant  Professor  of  English  Literature  at  Yale  College 


NEW    YORK 

HENRY   HOLT   AND   COMPANY 
1900 


Copyright,  igoo, 

BY 

HENRY  HOLT  &  CO, 


FOBERT   DRUMMOND,    PKINTRR,    NEW   YORK. 


PREFACE 


In  a  number  of  the  London  Spectator,  dated  exactly 
forty-seven  years  ago  to-day,  tKe  reviewer  of  Thack- 
eray's new  book  on  the  English  Humourists  remarked, 
"  All  will  be  interested  in  looking  over  the  accompany- 
ing notes,  (which  might  have  been  and  may  yet  be  made 
more  complete)."  To  the  best  of  my  knovvledge,  this 
suggestion  in  the  Spectator — with  the  exception  of  a 
few   bracketed   foot-notes    added    to  the  Biographical 

^  Edition — has  never  been  heeded,  and  since  the  editio 
princeps  of  1853  there  has  never  appeared  an  annotated 
edition  of  these  famous  lectures.  As  they  are  particu- 
larly allusive,  the  need  for  explanatory  notes  is  a  real 
one,  and  in  this  instance  I  have  therefore  chosen  to  err 
on  the  side  of  fullness  rather  than  be  incomplete. 
Many  readers  and  students  may  feel  some  irritation  at 
finding  things  elucidated  that  in  their  judgment  require 

^    no  comment ;  but  on  the  other  hand  it  is  hoped  that 

^    few  will  look  to  the  Notes  for  necessary  explanations, 

^S    and  look  in  vain. 

Svi  The  text  of  this  edition,  with  the  regular  foot-notes, 
^^is  taken,  by  the  kind  permission  of  Messrs.  Harper  and 

Sa   brothers,    from    the  Biographical    Edition    of  Thack- 

vS^eray's  Works.  Except  in  a  few  obvious  typographical 
errors,    I  have  followed,  this  standard  text  verbatim  et 

iii 

45&597 


IV  PREFA  CE 

literatim,  correcting  in  my  own  Notes  at  the  rear  of 
the  book  errors  that  occur  in  the  text  and  foot-notes 
of  the  Biographical  Edition,  and  pointing  out  impor- 
tant variations  from  the  text  of  the  first  edition.  And 
the  receipt  of  corrections  of  my  own  errors  will  be 
gratefully  and  promptly  acknowledged. 

For  furnishing  some  references  in  the  Notes,  I  wish 
to  express  my  thanks  to  Professor  H.  P.  Wright,  Pro- 
fessor T.  D.  Goodell,  Professor  W.  L.  Cross,  and  Mr. 
Richard  Holbrook,  all  of  Yale,  and  to  Professor  G.  L. 
Kittredge,  of  Harvard. 

W.  L.   P. 

Yale  College,  i  i  June  1900. 


After  this  book  was  entirely  cast  and  ready  for  publi- 
cation, I  came  across,  in  the  library  of  the  British 
Museum,  the  following  work:  "Thackeray's  Lectures 
on  the  English  Humourists  of  the  Eighteenth  Century. 
Mit  bibliographischen  Material,  litterarischer  Einlei- 
tung  und  sachlichen  Anmerkungen  fiir  Studierende. 
Herausgegeben  von  Ernst  Regel.  Halle :  Max  Nie- 
meyer.  1885-1891."  [In  six  parts,  8°,  paper.]  I 
greatly  regret  that  this  valuable  work  did  not  come  to 
my  notice  in  time  to  be  of  assistance. 

W.  L.  P. 
London,  19  July,   1900. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

INTRODUCTION vii 

Life  of  Thackeray vii 

The  English  Humourists xv 

.  David  Hannay xxi 

Contemporary  Reviews xxiv 

1.  The  Tribune xxiv 

2.  Eraser's  Magazine xxvi 

3.  Putnam's  Magazine xxviii 

4.  Colburn's  New  Monthly xxxii 

5.  The  Spectator xxxiv 

6.  The  Examiner xxxvi 

7.  The  Athenaeum xxxix 

THE   ENGLISH   HUMOURISTS i 

NOTES 2Q7 

V 


INTRODUCTION 

THE   LIFE   OF  THACKERAY* 

William  Makepeace  Thackeray  was  born  at  Cal- 
cutta, on  the  eighteenth  of  July,  1811.  His  father, 
Richmond  Thackeray,  went  to  India  in  the  service  of 
the  East  India  Company,  in  1798,  He  was  married 
at  Calcutta  to  Anne  Becher,  in  18 10;  and  the  great 
novelist  was  their  only  child.  In  18 16  Mr.  Thackeray 
died,  and  the  following  year  the  boy  was  sent  to 
England,  the  ship  stopping  at  St.  Helena  on  the  way, 
where  a  glimpse  of  Napoleon  was  obtained.  Thackeray 
first  went  to  school  in  Hampshire,  then  at  Chiswick, 

*  The  facts  given  in  this  sketch  are  chiefly  taken  from  the  Dic- 
tionary of  National  Biography,  though  the  Life  by  Merivale  & 
Marzials,  in  the  "  Great  Writers  "  Series,  and  the  biography  in 
two  volumes  by  Lewis  Melville  (1899),  have  of  course  been  con- 
sulted. Mrs.  Ritchie's  Introductions  to  the  Biographical  Edition 
of  Thackeray's  Works  are  invaluable  for  their  biographical  data 
and  bits  of  personal  information.  In  her  Introduction  to  the 
Esmond  volume  will  be  found  some  information  about  the  lectures 
on  the  Humourists;  and  at  the  close  of  the  last  volume,  Ballads 
and  Miscellanies,  there  is  a  Bibliography  of  Thackeray's  Works. 


Vlll  INTRODUCTION 

and  from  1822  to  1828  he  was  at  the  Charterhouse. 
Here  his  schoolmate  Venables  broke  his  nose  in  a  fight, 
and  left  an  equally  indelible  impression  on  his  mind, 
for  the  two  became  friends  for  life.  Thackeray  showed 
no  particular  ability  in  scholarship  while  at  school,  but 
even  then  exercised  his  talents  at  playful  composition 
in  verse. 

After  leaving  the  Charterhouse  in  1828,  he  lived  with 
his  mother  and  stepfather  near  Ottery-St. -Mary,  in 
Devonshire,  the  birthplace  of  Coleridge.  The  memories 
of  these  days  appear  in  Pendemiis.  In  February,  1829, 
he  went  to  Cambridge,  entering  Trinity  College.  The 
social  life  of  the  place  was  what  chiefly  appealed  to 
him.  Mathematics  he  did  not  like,  and  he  was  but 
illy  prepared  in  the  classics.  He  did  some  desultory 
writing  for  the  college  paper,  the  most  notable  attempt 
being  his  parody  of  Tennyson's  prize  poem,  Timbuctoo. 
In  1830  he  left  Cambridge,  feeling  that  the  training  he 
received  there  was  not  of  much  practical  value.  From 
his  father  he  inherited  about  twenty  thousand  pounds, 
and  not  wishing  to  become  a  lawyer,  which  profession 
his  relatives  advised  him  to  enter,  and  probably  in  a 
rather  undecided  frame  of  mind  as  to  his  future,  he  set 
forth  on  his  travels. 

In  this  year  he  went  to  Weimar,  the  home  of  Goethe, 
where  he  stayed  for  some  time.  These  must  have  been 
some  of  the  most  pleasant  months  of  his  life.  He  met 
the  great  poet,  studied  German,  tried  his  hand  at 
translations,  and  drew  caricatures  for  amusement. 
Finally  making  up  his  mind  after  all  to  study  law,  he 
returned  to  England  in  1831,  and  entered  the  Middle 


INTRODUCTION  IX 

Temple.  This  proved  to  be  his  last  attempt  to  force 
his  genius  away  from  its  natural  inclinations;  for 
although  he  now  really  gave  the  study  of  law  a  fair 
trial,  the  result  was  that  it  became  more  and  more  irk- 
some to  him.  He  ran  over  to  Paris  several  times 
during  this  residence  in  the  Temple. 

In  1833  we  find  Thackeray  mingling  more  and 
more  in  literary  circles,  and  living  the  life  of  a  literary 
Bohemian.  He  put  some  of  his  capital  into  a  paper, 
and  became  editor  as  well  as  proprietor.  The  venture 
was  not  a  happy  one  from  the  financial  point  of  view, 
and  early  in  1834  the  paper  ceased  to  exist.  Certain 
failures  in  investments,  combined  with  occasional  losses 
at  gambling,  produced  a  serious  effect  on  Thackeray's 
fortune  at  about  this  time,  and  he  found  himself  no 
longer  able  to  live  without  working  for  the  privilege. 
Accordingly,  he  made  up  his  mind  to  become  an  artist^ 
and  to  prepare  for  this  career  by  studying  in  Paris. 
He  worked  faithfully,  and  enjoyed  it. 

In  1836  Thackeray  became  the  Paris  correspondent 
of  a  radical  paper  called  the  Consii/utioJial.  Thinking 
that  he  had  at  last  obtained  regular  employment, 
although  his  salary  was  not  large,  he  was  married  on 
the  twentieth  of  August,  in  Paris,  to  Miss  Isabella 
Gethin  Creagh  Shawe,  to  whom  he  had  been  engaged 
for  some  months.  The  Constitutional  failed  and  the 
next  year  (1837)  Thackeray  returned  to  London,  to 
earn  a  living  by  his  pen.  He  did  all  kinds  of  work, 
reviewing  Carlyle's  French  Revolution  among  other 
books.  For  Fraser's  Magazine  he  wrote  articles  that 
attracted    considerable    attention,    and    are    now   well 


X  IN  TROD  UCTION 

known,  the  Yellow-Plush  Correspondeiice ,'^  for  example. 
He  also  freely  indulged  his  genius  for  satire  in  a  way 
that  he  afterwards  regretted. 

In  1840  came  the  great  tragedy  of  his  life.  After 
the  birth  of  her  third  daughter,  his  wife  became  ill,  and 
steadily  grew  worse,  suffering  from  a  singular  disease 
of  the  mind,  that  baffled  all  the  great  assays  of  art. 
By  1842  she  was  in  a  hopeless  condition,  and  had  at 
last  to  be  placed  in  charge,  her  mental  powers  having 
entirely  vanished.  This  unspeakable  calamity  Thackeray 
endured  with  the  greatest  courage  and  nobility,  though 
of  course  it  forever  destroyed  the  possibility  of  home- 
life  and  domestic  happiness.  The  children  went  to 
live  with  the  grandparents  in  Paris:  and  with  the  un- 
fortunate vitality  of  those  whose  lives  are  worse  than 
worthless,  his  wife  survived  for  fifty  years.  Her  death 
in  1892  was  a  real  shock  to  the  world,  as  it  brought 
up  so  vividly  memories  of  her  great  husband. 

In  1842  Thackeray  began  his  contributions  to 
Punch,  which  had  been  started  the  year  before.  In 
process  of  time  he  became  one  of  its  most  important 
and  valuable  contributors,  and  a  volume  in  itself  might 
be  written  on  his  connection  with  this  famous  paper. 
Here  he  had  a  chance  to  employ  both  pen  and  pencil, 
and,  better  than  either,  his  genius  for  pure  fun.      He 

*  In  Melville's  Life,  I,  113,  note,  we  read:  "  The  Correspondence 
was  published  in  book  form  late  in  1838  by  Messrs.  Carey  &  Hart, 
of  Philadelphia.  This  is  the  first  volume  ever  issued  of  any  of 
Thackeray's  writings."  Yet,  curiously  enough,  in  the  Bibliog- 
raphy at  the  end  of  Melville's  Life,  this  volume  is  nowhere  men- 
tioned.     It  is  however,  given  in  tlie  Biog.  Ed.  Bibliography. 


IN  TR  OD  UCTIOJV  XI 

contributed  nearly  four  hundred  sketches.  The  Snob 
Papers  in  Punch  were  perhaps  the  first  things  that  really 
gave  him  a  wide  circle  of  readers,  and  made  his  name 
generally  known.  His  success  with  these  and  other 
literary  ventures  began  to  show  itself  in  a  financial  way; 
his  circumstances  improved  materially,  so  that  in  1846 
he  took  a  house,  and  brought  his  daughters  to  live 
with  him.  He  could  now  afford  to  write  real  litera- 
ture, the  thing  which  had  become  more  and  more  the 
ambition  of  his  life.  In  January,  1847,  the  first 
installment  of  Vanity  Fair  appeared;  and  before  the 
publication  of  the  last  number  in  July,  1848,  Thack- 
eray's place  as  a  great  English  novelist  was  secure. 

Then  followed  the  other  books,  which  all  the  world 
knows,  Pendennts  in  1848-9,  Henry  Esmond  (1852), 
and  the  Newcomes  (1853-55).  In  185 1  he  gave  his 
lectures  on  the  English  Humourists,  and  on  October 
30,  1852,  he  sailed  for  Boston,  where  he  repeated  the 
course  in  a  number  of  cities  in  the  United  States.  In 
1855  he  visited  America  again,  this  time  lecturing  on 
the  Four  Georges,  Thackeray's  object  in  lecturing 
was  simply  to  earn  and  lay  up  money  for  his  children, 
and  it  is  pleasant  to  note  the  financial  success  of  his 
tours  on  both  sides  of  the  water.  As  a  lecturer, 
although  his  audiences  went  to  see  the  author  of 
Vanity  Fair  rather  than  to  hear  his  views  on  literary 
themes,  he  usually  charmed  them.  His  manner  was 
entirely  unpretentious  and  refined — in  a  word,  he  was 
wholly  agreeable  and  put  his  hearers  immediately  at 
their  ease. 

In     1857    Thackeray    stood    for    Parliament    as    a 


Xll  INTROD  UCTION 

Liberal,  representing  tiie  city  of  Oxford.  He  was  for- 
tunately beaten  by  his  opponent,  and  he  complimented 
his  successful  antagonist  in  the  most  gracious  manner. 
It  is  more  than  probable  that  he  would  not  have 
especially  distinguished  himself  in  the  House,  and  it  is 
certain  that  he  employed  his  time  and  talents  more 
profitably  in  writing  novels. 

In  January,  i860,  the  Cornhill  Magazine  vi2iS  st2iried, 
and  Thackeray  accepted  the  post  of  editor.  This  gave 
the  periodical  great  vogue,  and  made  it  possible  to 
have  the  most  distinguished  list  of  contributors,  Tenny- 
son among  others.  Perhaps  the  most  extraordinary 
thing  that  Thackeray  did  in  his  capacity  as  editor  was 
to  refuse  a  poem  contributed  by  Mrs.  Browning,  on  the 
ground  of  its  immorality.  This,  as  Mr.  Birrell  says  of 
Swinburne's  taking  Carlyle  to  task  for  indelicacy,  "  has 
an  oddity  all  its  own."  Thackeray  felt  that  his  sub- 
scribers would  object,  and  perhaps  he  was  right  in 
rejecting  the  poem,  though,  under  the  circumstances, 
we  have  to  choose  between  two  alternatives :  either  the 
British  constituency  of  the  Cornhill  was  pathologically 
prudish,  or  the  Editor  was  very  timid.  The-  corre- 
spondence that  passed  between  Thackeray  and  Mrs. 
Browning  over  this  incident  is  deeply  interesting,*  and 
although  INIrs.  Browning  must  have  first  wept  and  then 
laughed,  she  accepted  the  Editor's  judgment  in  the 
beautiful  spirit  so  characteristic  of  her  whole  life,  and 
actually  sent  him  another'  contribution!  Surely  she 
was  not  far  from  the  kingdom  of  God. 

*  See  the  Letters  of  Elizabeth  Barrett  Bro'vning,  edited  by 
Kenyon,  Volume  II,  page  444  et  seq. 


INTRODUCTION  XUl 

On  the  night  of  December  23,  1863,  Thackeray  felt 
ill,  and  the  next  morning  was  found  dead  in  his  bed. 
He  was  buried  at  Kensal  Green,  and  a  bust  was  placed 
in  Westminster  Abbey. 

His  personal  appearance  was  striking.  He  was 
considerably  over  six  feet  in  height,  and  his  head  was 
very  large.  His  hair  was  perfectly  white  in  his  last 
years,  and  his  clear-cut  features  gave  him  a  distin- 
guished look.  His  enemies  said  he  was  snobbish,  but 
those  who  really  knew  the  man  have  given  the  most 
convincing  testimony  to  the  contrary.  The  truth  about 
Thackeray  seems  to  be  that  he  was  not  simply  one  of 
the  greatest  men  of  his  age,  but  one  of  the  best.  The 
old  charge  of  cynicism  is  now  seldom  heard,  and  to 
intelligent  readers  of  his  books  it  has  no  foundation. 
In  his  lectures  on  the  Humourists,  we  see  the  real  man, 
and  so  far  from  his  being  a  cynic,  his  heart  was  so 
tender,  and  so  susceptible  to  the  personal  characteris- 
tics of  others,  that  his  judgment  of  the  genius  of 
literary  men  was  biased  by  his  feelings.  A  cynic,  to 
be  a  cynic  at  all,  must  certainly  lack  two  things: 
Sympathy  and  Enthusiasm.  These  two  qualities  form 
perhaps  the  largest  element  in  Thackeray's  character, 
and,  with  his  unlimited  generosity,  make  him  one  of  the 
most  lovable  men  in  the  history  of  English  literature. 
He  had  faults,  but  they  were  not  the  faults  that  show 
the  cynic  or  the  snob.  He  has  been  charged  with  a 
lack  of  moral  earnestness:  but  in  reality  he  looked  at 
everything  from  the  moral  point  of  view:  indeed  too 
much  so,  for  his  art  as  a  novelist  is  seriously  marred 
by  his  constant  sermonising.      All  his  novels  and  lee- 


XIV  INTROD  UCriON 

tures  suffer  noticeably  from  this  tendency;  in  the 
Newcomes  it  is  at  times  almost  offensive.  Fortunately 
in  his  greatest  single  production,  EsmoJtd,  the  artist 
triumphs,  and  the  voice  of  the  preacher  is  not  so  loud. 
Perhaps  this  is  one  reason  why  we  rate  Esmottd  above 
his  other  books.  Thackeray's  religious  belief*  cannot 
be  stated  in  terms  of  exact  dogma,  for  he  could  not 
state  it  that  way  himself;  but  taking  his  life  as  a  whole, 
we  see  that  he  believed  in  God,  and  tried  to  keep  His 
commandments. 

*  For  a  striking  letter  he  wrote  about  this,  see  Introduction  to 
Works,  Biog.  Edition,  VII,  xxxiv  and  xxxv. 


THE    ENGLISH    HUMOURISTS. 

Thackeray  sailed  for  America  on  October  30,  1852. 
He  landed  at  Boston,  after  a  very  long  and  rough 
passage,  and  left  shortly  for  New  York.  In  the  New 
York  Tribune  for  November  1 7,  we  find  the  following 
editorial  comment :  ' '  Mr.  Thackeray  arrived  from 
Boston  by  the  express  day  train  yesterday.  His  first 
lecture  will  be  given  on  Friday  evening ;  and  we  advise 
those  who  mean  to  hear  it  to  secure  seats  to-day.  We 
think  there  will  be  few  unsold  to-morrow."  The 
Tribune  for  November  19  contained  the  following 
advertisement,  which  gave  for  the  first  time  the  full 
program  with  the  separate  dates : 

^°  Mercantile    Library    Association. — The    Board    of 

Direction  have  the  pleasure  to  announce  that  Mr.  THACKERAY 
will  deliver  his  course  of  Six  Lectures,  at  Rev.  Mr.  Chapin's, 
(late  Rev.  Mr.  Bellovirs's)  Church,  No.  543  Broadway,  near  Prince 
-St.,  on  MONDAY  and  FRIDAY  EVENINGS  of  each  week, 
commencing  at  8  o'clock. 

Friday,  Nov.  19— Swift. 

Monday,  Nov.  22 — Congreve  and  Addison. 

Friday,  Nov.  26 — Steele  and  the  Times  of  Queen  Anne. 

Monday,  Nov.  29 — Prior,  Gay  and  Pope. 

Friday,  Dec.  3 — Hogarth,  Smollett  and  Fielding. 

Monday,  Dec.  6 — Sterne  and  Goldsmith. 
Course  Tickets  to  members,  $2 ;  to  non-members,  $3. 
Single  Admission  to  members,  50c. ;  to  non-members,  75c. 

XV 


XVI  INTRODUCTION 

A  limited  number  of  single  Admission  Tickets  can  be  had  at 
the  Library  Rooms,  or  (unless  previously  disposed  of)  at  the  Door. 
WILLARD   L.    FELT,   Ch'n.  \ 
JAMES    D.    SMITH,  t  Lecture  Com. 

JOHN   F.    HALSTED,  ) 

The  course  had  to  be  repeated  in  New  York,  because 
of  the  impossibility  of  accommodating  all  who  wished 
to  hear  the  lecturer.  The  lectures  accordingly  began 
their  second  round  before  the  first  was  completed. 
They  were  given  again  in  the  same  church  on  the 
evenings  of  Dec.  i,  7,  10,  13,  15,  and  17.  Then 
Thackeray  went  to  Boston,  giving  the  opening  lecture 
on  Tuesday  evening,  Dec.  21,  and  continuing  on 
Fridays  and  Tuesdays.  There  seems  to  have  been 
some  jealousy  between  New  York  and  Boston  as  to 
which  city  he  would  visit  first.  This  difficulty  was 
partly  solved  by  his  landing  at  Boston  and  opening  his 
course  of  lectures  at  New  York,  returning  to  Boston 
after  his  metropolitan  success.*  Whether  Boston  felt 
at  all  chagrined  by  the  lectures  beginning  at  the  other 
city  or  not  is  difficult  to  ascertain.  The  Neiv  York 
Tribune  gave  full  and  glowing  accounts,  extracts  from 
which  are  printed  below;  while  the  Boston  Advertiser  s 
reports    were    confined    to    three    or    four    sentences. 

*  In  Melville's  Life,  I,  291,  292,  it  is  stated  that  the  lectures 
were  first  given  in  Boston,  and  the  exact  dates  of  his  New  York 
lectures  are  erroneously  given  for  the  Boston  series.  Mr.  Melville 
has  the  facts  completely  twisted.  He  says  Thackeray  remained 
in  New  York  for  a  week,  then  went  to  Boston,  gave  his  course 
twice,  and  then  returned  to  New  York  to  lecture.  If  we  simply 
substitute  "Boston"  for  "New  York,"  -^nA  vice  versa,  wc  have 
the  real  facts. 


7^ HE   ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS  XVII 

These  were,  however,  favourable  in  every  respect;  and 
we  know  that  the  lectures  were  entirely  successful  in 
Boston.  Thackeray  lectured  also  in  Philadelphia, 
Baltimore,  Richmond,  Charleston,  and  Savannah, 
covering  the  Atlantic  seaboard  fairly  well,  and  getting 
to  know  intimately  persons  of  the  most  bitter  opposi- 
tion in  political  beliefs.  The  Civil  War  was  therefore 
interesting  to  Thackeray  in  a  way  that  few  Englishmen 
found  it. 

It  is  possible  that  Thackeray  did  not  at  first  intend 
the  Lectures  to  be  published  at  all ;  and  he  certainly 
determined  not  to  print  them  until  they  had  first 
achieved  their  principal  object,  namely,  to  enable  him 
to  save  up  sufficient  money  to  provide  for  his  children. 
' '  Before  he  left  Washington  for  the  South,  his  Lectures 
on  the  English  Humourists  were  announced  by  Messrs. 
Harper  in  the  list  of  their  forthcoming  publications. 
A  gentleman,  who  was  conversing  with  him,  asked  if 
the  volume  would  be  published  before  he  had  finished 
his  tour.  '  Bless  you,  no, '  the  great  man  replied. 
'  Do  you  think  I'd  rip  open  my  goose  .? '  But  when 
that  reason  no  longer  existed  [1853]  they  were  pub- 
lished with  notes  by  James  Hannay,  simultaneously  in 
England  and  America,  but  without  illustrations,  though 
Thackeray  had  actually  sketched  Steele  and  Dr.  Johnson 
and  Boswell  before  the  idea  was  abandoned. ' '  i^^- 
mWe's  Li/e  0/  Thackeray,  II,  4.) 

The  lectures  were  published  in  London  on  the  fourth 
of  June,  1853,  price  ten  shillings  and  sixpence.  As 
this  original  edition  seems  to  be  hard  to  find,  a  photo- 
graphic reproduction  of  the  title  page  slightly  reduced, 
follows.  - 


xviii  INTROD  UCTION 

THE 


ENGLISH   HUMOURISTS 


EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY. 


a  %nii%  oC  ifctureg. 


DEUVEBED  IN  ENGLAND,  SCOTLAND,  AND  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF 
AMERICA. 


W.  M.  THACKERAY. 

Author  of  "  Esmond,"  "Pendennis,"  "  Vawty  Fair,"  &a 


LONDON: 
SMITH,  ELDEB,  &  CO.  65,  CORNHILL. 

BOMBAY :  SMITH,  TATLOB,  &  CO. 
1853. 

[r/iC  (vulhvr  0/this  icork  reserves  to  hinuetf  the  right  of  aiUMridng 
a  trandaiion  o/it.^ 


THE   ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS  Xix 

THE 

EIGLISH  HUMOURISTS 


EIGHTEENTH  CENTURY. 


%  ^mxi  nf  XiiXmi, 


W.  M.  THACKERAY, 

Author  or  "  Esmonci,"  "  Pendennia,"  "  Vanity  Fair,"  && 


NEW   YORK! 
Harper  <b  brothers,  publishers, 

339   &   331    PEARL   S  T  K  E  E  T, 
FBANKLtN   SQVAKB. 

1853. 


XX  INTROD  UCTION 

This  English  edition  is  a  volume  of  322  pages,  size 
l\  by  4i  inches. 

The  first  American  edition,  the  title-page  of  which  is 
reproduced  on  page  xix,  is  a  volume  of  297  pages,  and 
contains  in  addition  to  the  regular  six  lectures,  a 
seventh  called  Charity  and  Humour,  first  delivered  in 
New  York  City.* 

*  The  first  English  edition  of  the  Humourists  seems  to  be  sur- 
prisingly scarce,  though  it  does  not  fetch  a  great  price  at  auction 
sales.  It  is  not  in  the  libraries  of  Harvard,  or  Yale,  or  the 
Boston  Public,  or,  curiously  enough,  in  the  printed  catalogue  of 
the  British  Museum,  which  has  only  the  second  edition.  I  finally 
found  a  copy  in  the  library  of  the  Boston  Athenseum,  and  I  here 
make  acknowledgment  for  the  kindly  loan  of  it,  and  to  the  Boston 
Public  Library  for  loaning  a  copy  of  the  first  American  edition. 


JAMES    HANNAY. 

When  the  first  edition  of  Thackeray's  English 
Humourists  appeared  in  1853,  the  foot-notes  appended 
to  the  text  were  a  source  of  various  comment  from 
readers  and  reviewers.  There  was  nothing  to  show 
whose  hand  had  supplied  them,  for  it  was  easy  to  see 
that  they  were  not  written  by  the  master  himself.  In 
the  essay  on  Thackeray,  in  the  volume  called  Characters 
and  Criticisms,  Edinburgh,  1865,  by  James  Hannay, 
we  find  the  following  statement  on  page  55  :  "  Toward 
the  close  of  1852,  '  Esmond  '  appeared,  and  Thackeray 
sailed  for  America."  To  which  Hannay  appended 
the  following  foot-note:  "  He  recalled  the  present 
writer  from  a  tour  of  Scotland  in  October,  and  placed 
the  MS.  of  the  '  Humourists  '  in  his  hands  to  edit  and 
annotate  during  his  absence."  Thus,  as  Hannay's 
work  is  now  inseparably  associated  with  Thackeray's 
Lectures,  and  as  the  annotations  were  at  the  lecturer's 
own  particular  request,  it  may  be  well  to  give  some 
brief  account  of  the  editor's  life. 

James  Hannay  was  born  at  Dumfries,  on  the  seven- 
teenth of  February,  1827,  His  father  was  a  business 
man  who  wrote  a  now  forgotten  novel.  Young  Hannay 
entered  the  navy  in  1840,  and  served  in  the  blockade 


xxil  JNTROD  UCTION 

of  Alexandria.  With  his  love  of  reading  and  a  literary 
life,  the  career  of  an  officer  in  the  navy  began  to  grow 
more  and  more  distasteful,  and  in  1845  he  was  tried 
before  a  court-martial  and  expelled  from  the  service. 
No  disgrace  attaches  to  Hannay  for  this  misfortune,  for 
the  affair  at  the  time  was  generally  believed  to  be  the 
result  of  some  personal  hatred,  and  the  court's  decision 
was  finally  set  aside.  But  Hannay  had  had  enough  of 
the  navy,  and  from  1846  he  worked  for  the  press,  doing 
what  chance  literary  work  he  could.  In  reporting  for 
the  papers,  his  excellent  memory  served  him  well,  and 
he  employed  leisure  hours  at  the  library  of  the  British 
Museum.  He  became  acquainted  with  Thackeray  in 
1848,  and  began  to  make  headway  rapidly  in  literary 
circles.  Besides  publishing  novels  of  naval  life,  which 
at  the  time  had  some  vogue,  he  delivered  lectures  on 
literary  themes.  Satires  and  Satirists,  published  1854. 
He  learned  Greek  by  himself,  and  had  an  unquench- 
able intellectual  curiosity.  He  stood  for  Parliament 
as  a  Tory  in  1857,  and  was  defeated.  As  a  newspaper 
editor,  novelist,  lecturer,  and  general  author,  he 
became  a  well-known  literary  figure  about  i860.  In 
1868  he  was  made  consul  at  Brest,  which  post  he 
exchanged  for  that  of  Barcelona.  He  was  married 
twice,  in  1853,  the  year  when  his  notes*  to  the 
Humourists  appeared  in  print:  his  wife  died  in  1865. 
Then  in  1868  he  was  married  again,  his  second  wife 
dying  two  years  later.      He  himself  expired  very  sud- 

*  In  Melville's  Bibliography  {Life,  II,  301)  he  says,  "The 
Notes  were  written  by  Mr.  George  Hodder."  This  is,  of  course, 
a  mistake. 


JAMES  HANNAY  XXI 11 

denly  on  the  ninth  of  January,    1873,  i^^  ^  suburb  of 
Barcelona. 

[The  article  on  Hannay  in  the  Dictionary  0/  National 
Biography,  from  which  all  the  facts  in  the  above  brief 
sketch  are  taken,  was  written  by  his  son  David  Hannay, 
a  journalist,  who  has  published  a  number  of  books.] 


CONTEMPORARY    REVIEWS 

OF    THACKERAY'S   TRIP  TO   AMERICA   AND   OF   THE 
PUBLISHED   LECTURES. 

From  the  New  York  Tribune,*  Nov.  20,  1852. 

The  opening  lecture  of  INIr.  Thackeray's  course 
before  the  Mercantile  Library  Association  was  delivered 
last  evening.  The  spacious  church  (Rev.  Mr.  Chapin's) 
was  filled  to  the  extent  of  its  capacity  at  an  early  hour, 
by  an  audience  comprising  a  large  proportion  of  young 
men,  and  an  unusual  number  of  the  distinguished 
literary  and  professional  celebrities  of  New  York.  The 
fashionable  circles  were  fully  represented  by  an  impos- 
ing array  of  ladies.  Mr.  Thackeray  stood  on  an 
elevated  platform  in  front  of  the  pulpit.  *  *  *  In 
personal  appearance,  which  in  respect  to  the  curiosity 
of  the  public  we  may  be  permitted  to  allude  to,  Mr. 

*  An  editorial  in  the  N'tmi  York  Times  for  the  same  day  speaks 
of  the  matter  oi  this  first  lecture  in  the  most  glowing  terms  ;  his 
manner,  however,  did  not  greatly  impress  the  Times.  His  voice, 
which  one  paper  called  "  a  superb  tenor,"  the  Times  thought 
rather  light  ;  and  the  relations  between  his  hands  and  his  pockets 
took  up  nearly  a  paragraph  in  the  editorial.  The  Boston  corre- 
spondent of  the  Times  differed  totally  from  Thackeray's  estimate 
of  Swift. 


CONTEMPORARY  REVIEWS  XXV 

Thackeray  is  a  fine,  well-proportioned  specimen  of  a 
stalwart  Englishman — over  six  feet  in  stature — with  an 
expression  of  quiet  intelligence — -and  the  self-possessed 
bearing  of  a  man  of  the  world,  rather  than  the  scholastic 
appearance  of  the  occupant  of  the  library.  His  intel- 
lectual head,  which  bears  many  silvery  traces  of  the 
touch  of  time,  is  carried  erectly,  not  without  an  air  of 
reserve,  some  would  say  of  defiance.  In  his  elocution 
we  were  happily  disappointed.  The  English  journals 
have  not  done  INIr.  Thackeray  justice  in  that  respect. 
His  manner,  without  any  oratorical  pretensions,  is 
admirably  adapted  to  the  lecture-room.  As  a  medium 
of  instruction,  it  is  far  more  grateful  to  the  hearer  than 
the  more  impassioned  style,  which  is  often  adopted  by 
our  popular  lecturers.  The  calm  flow  of  his  speech  is 
so  transparent  that  the  sense  shines  through  it  without 
subjecting  the  mind's  eye  to  a  too  severe  trial.  His 
voice  is  rich,  deep,  flexible,  and  equally  expressive  of 
emotion  and  thought  in  its  intonations — the  words  are 
delivered  with  that  clean  finish  which  so  often  distin- 
guishes the  cultivated  Englishman — his  emphasis  is 
pregnant  with  meaning — and,  without  any  apparent 
effort,  his  ringing  tones  fill  the  ear  of  the  most  remote 
listener.  Mr.  Thackeray  uses  no  gesture,  except 
occasionally  a  convulsive  clinching  of  the  fist,  or  an 
emphatic  thrusting  of  the  hand  into  his  pocket  or 
under  his  coat.  In  short,  his  delivery  was  that  of  a 
well-bred  gentleman,  reading  with  marked  force  and 
propriety  to  a  large  circle  in  the  drawing-room. 

The    composition    of     his    lecture    was    masterly. 
Graphic,   terse,   pointed,   epigrammatic,   abounding  in 


XXVI  INTKOD  UCTIOM 

keen  flashes  of  wit,  alternately  gay  and  pathetic,  it 
displayed  the  same  subtle  perception  of  character, 
and  condensed  vigor  of  expression,  which  distinguish 
Thackeray  among  most,  shall  we  not  say  all,  modern 
writers  of  fiction.  No  report  can  do  anything  like 
justice  to  the  numerous  felicities  of  the  lecture. 

[The  subsequent  notices  were  generally  laudatory, 
although  in  the  report  of  the  last  lecture  in  the  Tribune 
for  Dec.  7,  we  find  the  following: 

"The  hour  for  commencing  being  8  o'clock, 
Mr.  Thackeray  appeared  punctually  at  eighteen  minutes 
past  the  time,  and  proceeded  with  his  lecture." 

At  the  close  of  this  last  lecture,  resolutions  of  appre- 
ciation were  voted  by  the  audience.] 

From  Fraser's  Magazine,  January,  1853.* 
MR.    THACKERAY   IN   THE   UNITED   STATES. 

To  the  Editor  0/  Fraser's  Magazine  : 

You  may  remember,  my  dear  sir,  how  I  prognosti- 
cated a  warm  reception  for  your  Mr.  Michael  Angelo 
Titmarsh  in  New  York — how  I  advised  that  he  should 
come  by  a  Collins  rather  than  a  Cunard  liner — how 
that  he  must  land  at  New  York  rather  than  at  Boston 
— or  at  any  rate,  that  he  mustn't  dare  to  begin  lectur- 
ing at  the  latter  city,  and  bring  '  cold  joints  '  to  the 
former  one.  In  the  last  particular  he  has  happily  fol- 
lowed my  suggestion,   and   has    opened  with  a  warm 

*  This  burlesque  article  was  signed  "John  Small,"  but  it  was 
immediately  recognised  as  Thackeray's  own  work. 


CONTEMPORARY   REVIEWS  XX VU 

success  in  the  chief  city.  The  journals  have  been  full 
of  him.  On  the  19th  of  November,  he  commenced  his 
lectures  before  the  Mercantile  Library  Association 
(young  ardent  commercialists),  in  the  spacious  New- 
York  Church  belonging  to  the  flock  presided  over  by 
the  Rev.  Mr.  Chapine;  a  strong  row  of  ladies — the 
cream  of  the  capital — and  an  '  unusual  number  of  the 
distinguished  literary  and  professional  celebrities.' 
The  critic  of  the  New  York  Tribune  is  forward  to  com- 
mend his  style  of  delivery  as  '  that  of  a  well-bred  gentle- 
man, reading  with  marked  force  and  propriety  to  a 
large  circle  in  the  drawing-room.'  So  far,  excellent. 
This  witness  is  a  gentleman  of  the  press,  and  is  a  credit 
to  his  order.  But  there  are  some  others  who  have 
whetted  the  ordinary  American  appetite  of  inquisitive- 
ness  with  astounding  intelligence. 

;):  *  *  ;(c  :)<  :): 

You  cannot  help  perceiving  that  the  lion  in  America 
is  public  property  and  confiscate  to  the  public  weal. 
They  trim  the  creature's  nails,  they  cut  the  hair  off  his 
mane  and  tail  (which  is  distributed  or  sold  to  his 
adrnirers),  and  they  draw  his  teeth,  which  are  frequently 
preserved  with  much  the  same  care  as  you  keep  any 
memorable  grinder  whose  presence  has  been  agony,  and 
departure  delight. 

Bear  leading  is  not  so  in  vogue  across  the  Atlantic 
as  at  your  home  in  England;  but  lion  leading  is  in- 
finitely more  in  fashion. 

Some  learned  man  is 'appointed  Androcles  to  the 
new  arrival.  One  of  the  familiars  of  the  press  is 
despatched  to  attend  to  the  latest  attraction,  and  by 


XXVlll  INTRODUCTION 

this  reflecting  medium  the  lion  is  perpetually  presented 
to  the  popular  gaze.  The  guest's  most  secret  self  is 
exposed  by  his  host.  Every  action — every  word — every 
gesture  is  preserved  and  proclaimed — a  sigh — a  nod — 
a  gproan — a  sneeze — a  cough — or  a  wink — is  each 
written  down  by  this  recording  minister,  who  blots  out 
nothing.  No  tabula  rasa  with  him.  The  portrait  is 
limned  with  the  fidelity  of  Parrhasius,  and  filled  up 
with  the  minuteness  of  the  Daguerre  process  itself. 
No  blood-hound  or  Bow-street  officer  can  be  keener, 
or  more  exact  on  the  trail  than  this  irresistible  and 
unavoidable  spy.  Tis  in  Avistria  they  calotype  crimi- 
nals :  in  the  far  West  the  public  press  prints  the  identity 
of  each  notorious  visitor  to  its  shores. 

In  turn  Mr.  Dickens,  Lord  Carlisle,  Jenny  Lind,  and 
now  Mr.  Thackeray,  have  been  lionized  in  America. 
They  go  to  see,  themselves  a  greater  sight  than  all. 

[Thackeray  may  have  felt  that  this  article  would 
cause  some  irritation ;  he  therefore  closed  it  with  a 
graceful  tribute  to  American  hospitality,  reprinted  from 
the  concluding  remarks  of  his  last  lecture  in  New  York, 
Dec.  6,  1852.  Curiously  enough,  in  alluding  to  this 
lecture,  he  gave  the  date  as  Dec.  7,  a  mistake  in  which 
he  is  followed  by  Mr.  Melville,  Life,  I.  297.] 

From  Putnam  s  Aldgaziiw,  June,  1853. 
THACKERAY   IX   AMERICA. 

Mr.  Thackeray's  visit  at  least  demonstrated,  that  if 
we  are  unwilling  to  pay  English  authors  for  their  books, 
we  are  ready  to  reward  them  handsomely  for  the  oppor- 


CONTEMFOKAKY  REVIEWS  XXIX 

tunity  of  seeing  and  hearing  them.  If  Mr.  Dickens, 
instead  of  dining  at  other  people's  expense,  and  making 
speeches  at  his  own,  when  he  came  to  see  us,  had 
devoted  an  evening  or  two  in  the  week  to  lecturing, 
his  purse  would  have  been  fuller,  his  feelings  sweeter, 
and  his  fame  fairer.  It  was  a  Quixotic  crusade,  that 
of  the  Copyright,  and  the  excellent  Don  has  never  for- 
given the  windmill  that  broke  his  spear. 

Undoubtedly,  when  it  was  ascertained  that  Mr. 
Thackeray  was  coming,  the  public  feeling  on  our  side 
of  the  sea  was  very  much  divided  as  to  his  probable 
reception.  "  He'll  come  and  humbug  us,  eat  our 
dinners,  pocket  our  money,  and  go  home  and  abuse 
us,  like  that  unmitigated  snob  Dickens,"  said  Jona- 
than, chafing  with  the  remembrance  of  that  grand  ball 
at  the  Park  Theatre,  and  the  Boz  tableaux,  and  the 
universal  wining  and  dining,  to  which  the  distinguished 
Dickens  was  subject  while  he  was  our  guest. 

"  Let  him  have  his  say,"  said  others,  "  and  we  will 
have  our  look.  V/e  will  pay  a  dollar  to  hear  him,  it 
we  can  see  him  at  the  same  time ;  and  as  for  the  abuse, 
why  it  takes  even  more  than  two  such  cubs  of  the 
roaring  British  lion  to  frighten  the  American  eagle. 
Let  him  come,  and  give  him  fair  play." 

He  did  come,  and  has  had  his  fair  play,  and  has 
returned  to  England  with  a  comfortable  pot  of  gold 
holding  $12,000,  and  with  the  hope  and  promise  of 
seeing  us  again  in  September,  to  discourse  of  something 
not  less  entertaining  than  the  witty  men  and  sparkling 
times  of  Anne.  We  think  there  was  no  disappointment 
with  his  lectures.      Those  who  knew  his  books  found 


XXX  INTROD  UC7U0N 

tlie  author  in  the  lecturer.  Those  who  did  not  know 
the  books  were  charmed  in  the  lecturer  by  what  is 
charming  in  the  author,  the  unaffected  humanity,  the 
tenderness,  the  sweetness,  the  genial  play  of  fancy,  and 
the  sad  touch  of  truth,  with  that  glancing  stroke  of 
satire,  which,  lightning-like,  illumines  while  it  withers. 
The  lectures  were  even  more  delightful  than  the  books, 
because  the  tones  of  the  voice,  and  the  appearance  of 
the  man,  the  general  personal  magnetism,  explained 
and  alleviated  so  much  that  would  otherwise  have 
seemed  doubtful  or  unfair.  For  those  who  had  long 
felt  in  the  writings  of  Thackeray  a  reality,  quite  inex- 
pressible, there  was  a  secret  delight  in  finding  it  justified 
by  his  speaking.  For  he  speaks  as  he  writes,  simply, 
directly,  without  flourish,  without  any  cant  of  oratory, 
commending  what  he  says  by  its  intrinsic  sense,  and 
the  sympathetic,  and  humane  way  in  which  it  was 
spoken.  Thackeray  is  the  kind  of  "stump-orator" 
that  would  have  pleased  Carlyle.  He  never  thrusts 
himself  between  you  and  his  thought.  If  his  concep- 
tion of  the  time  and  his  estimate  of  the  men  differ  from 
your  own,  you  have  at  least  no  doubt  what  his  view  is, 
nor  how  sincere  and  necessary  it  is  to  him.  Mr. 
Thackeray  considers  Swift  a  misanthrope.  He  loves 
Goldsmith,  and  Steele,  and  Harry  Fielding.  He  has 
no  love  for  Sterne,  great  admiration  for  Pope,  and 
alleviated  admiration  for  Addison.  How  could  it  be 
otherwise  }  How  could  Thackeray  not  think  Swift  a 
misanthrope,  and  Sterne  a  factitious  sentimentalist  } 
He  is  a  man  of  instincts,  not  of  thoughts.  He  sees 
and    feels.       He    would    be    "  Shakspeare's  call-boy  " 


CONTEMPORARY  REVIEWS  XXXI 

rather  than  dine  with  the  Dean  of  St.  Patrick's.  He 
would  take  a  pot  of  ale  with  Goldsmith  rather  than  a 
glass  of  Burgundy  with  the  "  Reverend  Mr.  Sterne," 
and  that,  simply,  because  he  is  Thackeray.  He  would 
have  done  it  as  Fielding  would  have  done  it,  because 
he  values  one  genuine  emotion  above  the  most  dazzling 
thought,  because  he  is,  in  fine,  a  Bohemian,  "  a  minion 
of  the  moon, ' '  a  great,  sweet,  generous  human  heart. 

We  say  this  with  the  more  unction  now,  that  we 
have  the  personal  proof  of  it  in  his  public  and  private 
intercourse  while  he  was  here. 

The  popular  Thackeray-theory,  before  his  arrival, 
was  of  a  severe  satirist,  who  concealed  scalpels  in  his 
sleeves  and  carried  probes  in  his  waistcoat  pockets;  a 
scoffer  and  sneerer,  and  general  infidel  of  all  high  aim 
and  noble  character.  Certainly  we  are  justified  in 
saying  that  his  presence  among  us  quite  corrected  this 
idea. 

****** 

We  conceive  this  to  be  the  chief  result  of  Thackeray's 
visit,  that  he  convinced  us  of  his  intellectual  integrity; 
he  showed  us  how  impossible  it  is  for  him  to  see  the 
world,  and  describe  it  other  than  he  does.  He  does 
not  profess  cynicism,  nor  satirize  society  with  malice. 
There  is  no  man  more  humble,  none  more  simple. 
*  *  *  *  *         *    * 

There  is  no  man  who  masks  so  little  as  he,  in 
assuming  the  author.  His  books  are  his  observations 
reduced  to  writing.  It  seems  to  us  as  singular  to 
demand  that  Dante  should  be  like  Shakspeare,  as  to 
quarrel  with  Thackeray's  want  of  what  is  called  ideal 


XXXll  INTROD  UCTION 

portraiture.  Even  if  you  thought,  from  reading  his 
Vanity  Fair,  that  he  had  no  conception  of  noble 
women,  certainly  after  the  lecture  upon  Swift,  after  all 
the  lectures,  in  which  every  allusion  to  women  was  so 
manly,  and  delicate,  and  sympathetic,  you  thought  so 
no  longer. 

Mr.  Thackeray's  success  was  very  great.  He  did 
not  visit  the  West,  nor  Canada.  He  went  home  with- 
out seeing  Niagara  Falls.  But  wherever  he  did  go,  he 
found  a  generous  social  welcome,  and  a  respectful  and 
sympathetic  hearing.  He  came  to  fulfil  no  mission  : 
but  he  certainly  knit  more  closely  our  sympathy  with 
Englishmen. 

From  Colburn's  Nevi)  Monthly.     Reprinted    \\\   The  Eclectic 
Magazine,  December,  1853. 

THACKERAY'S   LECTURES   ON   THE   ENGLISH 
HUMORISTS. 

"  Heroes  and  Hero-worship  " — a  subject  chosen  by 
Mr.  Carlyle,  when  he  arose  to  discourse  before  the 
sweet  shadf'-sidesmen  of  Pall  Mall  and  the  fair  of 
Mayfair — is  not  all  the  res  vexanda  one  would  predicate 
for  a  course  of  lectures  by  Mr.  Titmarsh.  If  the 
magnificence  of  the  hero  grows  small  by  degrees  and 
beautifully  less  before  the  microscopic  scrutiny  of  his 
valet,  so  might  it  be  expected  to  end  in  a  minus  sign, 
after  subjection  to  the  eliminating  process  of  the 
"Book  of  Snobs."  Yet  one  passage,  at  least,  there 
is  in  the  attractive  volume  before  us,  instinct  with  hero- 


CONTEMPORARY  REVIEWS  XXXUl 

worship,  and,  some  will  think,  (as  coming  from  such  a 
quarter,)  surcharged  with  enthusiasm, — where  the  lec- 
turer affirms,  "  I  should  like  to  have  been  Shakspeare's 
shoeblack — just  to  have  lived  in  his  house,  just  to  have 
worshipped  him — to  have  run  on  his  errands,  and  seen 
that  sweet  serene  face."  At  which  sally,  we  can  im- 
agine nil  admirari  io\ks  exclaiming,  (if  they  be  capable 
of  an  exclamation,)  "  Oh,  you  little  snob!  "  Never- 
theless, that  sally  will  go  far  to  propitiate  many  a 
reader  hitherto  steeled  against  the  showman  of ' '  Vanity 
Fair,"  as  an  inveterate  cynic — however  little  of  real 
ground  he  may  have  given  for  such  a  prejudice. 

As  with  clerical  sermons,  so  with  laic  lectures,  there 
are  few  one  pines  to  see  in  print.  In  the  present 
instance,  those  who  were  of  Mr.  Thackeray's  audience 
will  probably,  in  the  majority  of  cases,  own  to  a  sense 
of  comparative  tameness  as  the  result  of  deliberate 
perusal.  Nevertheless,  the  book  could  be  ill  spared, 
as  books  go.  It  is  full  of  sound,  healthy,  manly, 
vigorous  writing — sagacious  in  observation,  independ- 
ent and  thoughtful,  earnest  in  sentiment,  in  style 
pointed,  clear,  and  straightforward. 

If  we  cared  to  dwell  upon  them,  we  might,  however, 
make  exceptions  decided  if  not  plentiful  against  parts  of 
this  volume.  That  Mr.  Thackeray  can  be  pertinaciously 
one-sided  was  seen  in  his  "  Esmond  "  draught  of  the 
Duke  of  Marlborough.  A  like  restriction  of  vision  seems 
here  to  distort  his  presentment  of  Sterne  and  of  Hogarth. 


XXXIV  INTROD  UCTION 

The  lecture  on  Congreve  is  Titmarsh  all  over.  .  .  . 
Addison  meets  with  warmer  eulogy  than  might  have 
been  expected.  He  is  invariably  mentioned  with  lov- 
ing deference.  .  .  .  We  have  not  the  heart  to  inquire, 
here,  whether  the  portrait,  as  a  whole-length,  is  not 
too  flattering  in  its  proportions,  and  too  bright  in 
coloring.  But  doubtless  the  lecturer  might,  and  many, 
we  surmise,  expected  that  he  would,  take  a  strangely 
opposite  view  of  Pope's  "  Atticus."  .  .  .  Steele  is  one 
of  Mr.  Thackeray's  darlings. 

*  *  *  *  *  *      < 

They  [the  readers]  may  stumble  here  and  there — 
one  at  the  estimate  of  Pope's  poetical  status,  another 
at  the  panegyric  on  Addison,  and  some  at  the  scanty 
acknowledgments  awarded  to  Hogarth  and  to  Sterne. 
But  none  will  put  down  the  book  without  a  sense  of 
growing  respect  for  the  head  and  the  heart  of  its  author, 
and  a  glad  pride  in  him  as  one  of  the  Representative 
Men  of  England's  current  literature. 

From  The  Spectator  (London),  June  ii,  1853. 

Mr.  Thackeray  is  amongst  us  once  again,  and  gives 
welcome  notice  of  his  reappearance  by  the  publication 
of  the  famous  lectures  we  heard  two  years  ago.  Since 
that  time  they  have  drawn  crowds  of  interested  listeners 
in  many  of  our  great  towns.  Those  who  came  once 
to  see  and  hear  the  author  of  "  Vanity  Fair,"  and  to 
watch  at  a  safe  distance  the  terrible  satirist,  whose 
dressing-gown,  like  that  of  the  old  Prankish  King,  was 
trimmed  with  the  scalps  of  slaughtered  "  snobs,"  were 


CONTEMPORARY  REVIEWS  XXXV 

attracted  to  continue  their  attendance  to  the  close  of 
the  course  by  the  engaging  manner  of  the  lecturer,  just 
sufficiently  elevated  above  the  frank  familiarity  of  the 
best  society,  by  his  expressive  but  always  pleasant 
voice,  by  his  unconcealed  desire  to  make  a  favourable 
impression  upon  his  audience,-  no  less  than  by  the 
sense,  the  sound  feeling,  the  delicate  irony,  the  pro- 
found human  experience,  or  the  fascinating  style  of  the 
lectures.  It  has  been  a  great  triumph  for  Mr.  Thack- 
eray to  have  established  this  personal  relation  betvi^een 
himself  and  the  admirers  of  his  books;  so  that  hence- 
forth he  speaks  to  them  through  these  books,  not  as  an 
abstraction,  a  voice  issuing  from  a  mask,  but  as  a  living 
man,  and  a  friendly,  companionable,  accomplished 
gentleman. 

Mr.  Thackeray's  English  success  has  been  more  than 
repeated  in  America;  fulfilling  the  hope  with  which  we 
closed  our  review  of  Esmond,  "  that  his  genial  presence 
would  add  another  to  the  many  links  which  bind 
England  to  the  United  States."  The  Americans  have 
been  delighted  with  their  guest ;  and  he  is  not  the  man 
upon  whom  either  the  cordiality  of  their  reception, 
or  the  greatness  of  their  future,  or  the  expanding 
energies  of  their  present,  are  likely  to  be  lost;  nor  will 
he  regard  every  deviation  from  the  Belgravian  code  of 
manners  as  necessarily  an  infringement  upon  those 
principles  of  manliness,  kindness,  simplicity,  and  feel- 
ing for  the  beautiful,  by  which  all  codes  of  manners 
will  one  day  come  to  be  tested.  In  him,  American 
men,   women,   and   institutions  have  a  critic  at  once 


XXXVl  INTROD  UCTION 

frank,  fearless,  and  friendly :  already,  as  we  hear, 
countesses  and  duchesses  lift  up  astonished  eyes  at 
being  told  by  one  who  is  a  favourite  in  their  sacred 
circle,  that  the  women  of  Boston,  Baltimore,  and  New 
York — ' '  creatures  ' '  belonging  to  merchants,  lawyers, 
and  men  of  letters — are  as  good  as  themselves. 

In  turning  over  the  pages  of  Mr,  Thackeray's  Lec- 
tures, (which,  by  the  way,  abound  in  misprints,  requir- 
ing the  vigilance  of  the  proof-corrector  for  the  next 
edition,)  we  find,  as  we  expected,  many  points  of 
literary  criticism  on  which  questions  could  and  will  be 
raised.  Persons  whose  tastes  and  studies  have  led  them 
to  our  older  literature  and  history,  no  less  than  those 
whose  training  is  emphatically  modern,  will  consider 
that  Mr.  Thackeray  has  placed  far  too  high  the  general 
moral  and  intellectual  level  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

To  those  who  attended  the  lectures  the  book  will  be 
a  pleasant  reminiscence,  to  others  an  exciting  novelty; 
and  all  will  be  interested  in  looking  over  the  accom- 
panying notes,  (which  might  have  been  and  may  yet  be 
made  more  complete,)  as  an  agreeable  selection  of  the 
facts  and  passages  from  writings  on  which  the  lecturer's 
judgment  was  founded. 

From  The  Examiner  (London),  June  II,  1853. 

Followed  by  admiring  audiences  "in  England, 
Scotland,  and  the  United  States  of  America,"  these 
lectures  have  obtained  their  purpose,  have  achieved  all 


CONTEMPORARY  REVIEWS  XXXVll 

reasonable  fame  as  well  as  other  substantial  results  for 
the  lecturer,  and  present  very  little  to  us  now  to 
challenge  attention  from  a  reviewer.  The  chase  is 
over,  the  sport  run  down,  there  was  no  place  in  the 
hunt  for  the  critic,  and  where  at  last  should  he  come 
in  but  with  the  "laggers  who  fill  up  the  cry.  What 
matters  his  good  or  ill  word  }  The  book  is  sure  to 
sell. 

i|=  *  *  *  *  * 

Of  criticism  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word,  indeed, 
however  masterly  their  descriptive  passages,  the  lectures 
may  be  said  to  have  contained  little,  to  have  pretended 
to  little. 

5p  3(l  ^  -f^  t*  '1^ 

the  lecturer  must  excuse  us  for  saying  that  he  is  too 
fond  of  looking  up  to  great  imaginary  heights,  or  of 
looking  down  from  the  same;  and  that  hence,  too 
often,  he  places  his  heroes  in  the  not  enviable  predica- 
ment on  the  one  hand  of  being  too  much  coaxed, 
patronised,  or  (which  is  much  the  same  thing)  abused ; 
and  on  the  other  of  being  put  upon  a  top  shelf  so  very 
high  and  out  of  the  way,  that  if  we  do  not  take 
Mr,  Thackeray's  word  that  they  really  are  there,  we 
should  not,  in  those  inaccessible  places,  be  in  the  least 
likely  ourselves  to  discover  them.  We  could  not  for 
the  life  of  us  have  recognised  our  old  friend  Addison 
in  the  grand,  calm,  pale,  isolated  attitude  which  he  is 
here  shown  off  in,  as  one  of  "  the  lonely  ones  of  the 
world;  "  any  more  than  we  should  have  looked  for  the 
wise  and  profound  creator  of  Mr.  Shandy  and  my 
Uncle  Toby  in  the  ruff  and  motley  clothes  of  a  travel- 


XXXVlll  INTROD  UCTION 

ling  jester,  laying  down  his  carpet  and  tumbling  in  the 
street. 

But  what  fine  things  the  lectures  contain!  what 
eloquent  and  subtle  sayings,  what  wise  and  earnest 
writing!  how  delightful  are  their  turns  of  humour;  with 
what  a  touching  effect,  in  the  graver  passages,  the 
genuine  feeling  of  the  man  comes  out;  and  how  vividly 
the  thoughts  are  painted,  as  it  were,  in  graphic  and 
characteristic  words.  For  those  who  would  learn  the 
art  of  lecturing,  the  volume  is  a  study.  The  telling 
points  are  so  happily  seized,  and  the  attention  always 
so  vividly  kept  up,  yet  never  with  a  pressure  or  strain. 
The  lecture-room  is  again  before  us  as  we  read — the 
ready  responses  of  the  audience  flashing  back  those 
instant  appeals  of  the  speaker — and  a  great,  intelligent, 
admiring  crowd,  stirred  and  agitated  in  every  part  with 
genial  emotions  and  sympathy. 

Mr.  Thackeray's  lectures,  we  may  observe  in  con- 
clusion, are  printed  pretty  much  as  they  were  spoken, 
except  that  additions  have  been  made  (we  notice  this 
particularly  in  Swift)  in  connection  with  particular 
writings  of  the  humourists  not  at  first  introduced,  and 
that  a  great  many  notes  are  appended  illustrative  of 
statements  or  opinions  in  each  lecture.  We  are  not 
quite  sure  that  these  notes  will  be  thought  an  improve- 
ment. They  are  not  generally  very  apt,  they  have  no 
merit  of  rare  or  out-of-the-way  reading,  and  here  and 
there  they  have  tant  soil  pen  of  a  book -making  aspect. 
The  lectures  had  better  have  been  left  to  run  alone, 
which  they  could  well  afford  to  do. 


CONTEMPORARY  REVIEWS  xxxix 

[This  comment  on  the  notes  affords  an  interesting 
contrast  to  the  opinion  expressed  by  the  Spectator. 
See  above.] 

From  The  Athenaum  (London),  June  i8,  1853  and  a  second  notice 
in  issue  for  the  June  25,  1853. 

How  far  the  lives  and  works  of  such  personages  as 
Swift,  Steele,  Prior,  Fielding,  and  Smollett — five  figures 
in  Mr.  Thackeray's  gallery  of  Humourists — could  be 
at  once  plainly  and  humorously  treated  by  the  most 
devoted  Humour-worshipper,  for  the  edification  of  an 
audience  of  the  two  sexes,  admits  of  debate. 

-^  "y^  yp.  y^  "y^  "Tf. 

From  a  portion  of  his  audience — with  such  themes  as 
his — many  things  had  to  be  either  hidden,  or  indicated 
so  darkly  and  distantly  as  to  be  unmeaningly  harmless. 
Thus,  a  certain  tone  of  trifling  must  inevitably  have 
been  assumed  as  the  leading  tone  of  such  lectures  by 
any  one  desirous  of  suiting  means  to  ends.  Now,  all 
the  world  knows  this  to  be  Mr.  Thackeray's  habitual 
mood.  Real  earnestness  never  spoke  with  so  little 
apparent  earnestness  as  in  his  mouth.  When  his 
audiences  sat  down  to  listen  to  him,  he  warned  them 
in  the  outset  that  he  could  not  hope  to  entertain  them 
"with  a- merely  humorous  or  facetious  story."  Yet, 
after  this,  he  could  treat  them  to  a  drolling  digression, 
to  a  dangling  of  good  and  evil  in  day-light,  star-light, 
and  lamp-light,  so  that  the  one  should  seem  the  other, 
and  "both,  neither" — to  a  conclusive  inconclusive- 
ness — to  a  pleasant  song,  in  brief,  rather  than  a  literary 


xl  INTROD  UCTION 

essay  of  any  deep  authority  or  value.  Slight,  however, 
as  is  the  work,  it  is  not  without  valuable  treasures, 
deep  imbedded  here  and  there  among  its  shallows. 

Proceeding  with  these  desultory  notes,  it  may  be 
observed,  that  while  some  readers  of  these  '  Lectures ' 
will  deem  our  author's  estimate  of  Addison  over-elab- 
orate in  its  praise, — others  (and  ourselves  among  the 
number)  will  fancy  that  he  has  been  hard  on  Congreve. 

When  '  The  Spectator '  w-as  placed  on  a  pedestal  at 
the  expense  of  '  The  Way  of  the  World, '  our  shrewd 
student  of  the  Augustan  life  and  literature  of  England 
forgot  what  were  the  several  destinations  of  the  two 
works, — and  laid  too  unfairly  on  the  author's  indi- 
viduality the  blame  belonging  to  the  miry  place  down 
to  which  Comedy  lured  the  pretty  fellows  and  toasts  of 
the  town  to  find  their  diversion. 

We  return  to  this  welcome  book  at  the  name  of 
Prior, — of  whom,  we  think,  the  lecturer  might  have 
made  more  had  it  pleased  him  to  exercise  his  poignant 
skill  in  painting  a  conversation  picture  showing  the 
English  diplomatist  at  the  Hague. 

Our  lecturer  thinks  that  Moore  has  read  Prior  closely. 
It  may  be  so,  but  the  signs  of  such  study  escape  us. 
****** 

Perhaps  the  figure  in  this  gallery  on  which  our  Lec- 
turer has  bestowed  his  utmost  pains  is  Pope.      Here 


CONTEMPORARY  REVIEWS  xli 

Mr.  Thackeray  rises  into  a  greater  refinement  of  dis- 
tinction, into  a  graver  sympathy  with  his  subject,  than 
is  his  wont.  He  dwells  like  a  true  lover  of  "  letters  " 
(somewhat  different  this  from  a  lover  of  literature)  on 
the  fascinations  of  Pope's  correspondence;  and  after  a 
flourish  of  praise  in  its  behalf  something  pompous,  but, 
we  doubt  not,  sincere — falls  into  a  homelier  tune  which 
is  holy  and_  charming. 

****** 

We  can  point  to  Mr.  Thackeray's  appreciation  of 
Sterne  with  entire  approval.  "  Yorick  "  was,  indeed, 
a  fair  subject  for  a  denunciatory  sermon,  addressed  to 
the  sentimentalists  of  Vanity  Fair, — and  its  morals,  and 
his  want  of  morals,  are  not  spared  by  our  preacher, — 
With  Goldsmith  Mr.  Thackeray's  series  closes.  The 
author  of  the  '  Vicar '  is  genially  and  tenderly  handled. 
But  it  has  been  his  fate,  after  death,  to  be  loved  by  all 
who  have  commemorated  him'  with  uncommon  ardour, 
indulgence  and  unanimity. — To  conclude: — none  will 
read  these  Lectures,  whether  in  agreement  or  in  differ- 
ence, without  looking  forward  to  the  announcement  of 
some  future  series  from  their  shrewd  and  suggestive 
discourser. 


THE  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS  OF  THE 
EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY* 

Swift 

In  treating  of  the  English  Humourists  of  the  past 
age,  it  is  of  the  men  and  of  their  Hves,  rather 
than  of  their  books,  that  I  ask  permission  to 
speak  to  you ;   and  in  doing  so,  you  are  aware  that 

5  I  cannot  hope  to  entertain  you  with  a  merely  hu- 
mourous or  facetious  story.  Harlequin  without 
his  mask  is  known  to  present  a  very  sober  counte- 
nance, and  was  himself,  the  story  goes,  the  melan- 
choly patient  whom  the  doctor  advised  to  go  and 

lo  see  Harlequin  f — a  man  full  of  cares  and  per- 
plexities like  the  rest  of  us,  whose  Self  must  always 
be  serious  to  him,  under  whatever  mask  or  disguise 
or  uniform  he  presents  it  to  the  public.  And  as  all 
of  you  here  must  needs  be  grave  when  you  think 

15  of  your  own  past  and  present,  you  will  not  look  to 

•  The    notes    to  these    lectures    were    chiefly    written    by    James 

Hannay.      A    few  corrections    and    additions,    chiefly    due    to    later 
investigations,   are  now  inserted;     for   which   the   publishers   have  to 

thank   Mr.   Austin  Dobson,  Mr.   Sidney  Lee,  and  Mr.   L.   Stephen. 

20     t  The    anecdote  is    frequently    told    of    our    performer    John    Rich 

(1682  ?-i76i),    who  first    introduced    pantomimes,    and    himself    acted 
Harlequin. 


2  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

find,  in  the  histories  of  those  whose  lives  and  feel- 
ings I  am  going-  to  try  and  describe  to  you,  a  story 
that  is  otherwise  than  serious,  and  often  very  sad. 
If  Humour  only  meant  laughter,  you  would 
scarcely  feel  more  interest  about  humourous  writers  5 
than  about  the  private  Hfe  of  poor  Harlequin  just 
mentioned,  who  possesses  in  common  with  these 
the  power  of  making  you  laugh.  But  the  men  re- 
garding whose  lives  and  stories  your  kind  presence 
here  shows  that  you  have  curiosity  and  sympathy,  10 
appeal  to  a  great  number  of  our  other  faculties,  be- 
sides our  mere  sense  of  ridicule.  The  humourous 
writer  professes  to  awaken  and  direct  your  love, 
your  pity,  your  kindness — your  scorn  for  untruth, 
pretension,  imposture — your  tenderness  for  the  15 
weak,  the  poor,  the  oppressed,  the  unhappy.  To 
the  best  of  his  means  and  ability  he  comments  on 
all  the  ordinary  actions  and  passions  of  life  almost. 
He  takes  upon  himself  to  be  the  week-day  preacher, 
so  to  speak.  Accordingly,  as  he  finds,  and  speaks,  20 
and  feels  the  truth  best,  we  regard  him,  esteem  him 
— sometimes  love  him.  And,  as  his  business  is  to 
mark  other  people's  lives  and  peculiarities,  we  mor- 
alise upon  his  life  when  he  has  gone — and  yester- 
day's preacher  becomes  the  text  for  to-day's  ser-25 
mon. 

Of  English  parents,  and  of  a  good  English  family 
of  clergymen,*  Swift  was  born  in  Dublin  in  1667, 

•  He  was  from  a  younger  branch  of  the  Swifts  of  Yorkshire.     His 
grandfather,    the    Reverend    Thomas    Swift,    vicar    of    Goodrich,    in  3C 
Herefordshire,    suffered    for   his    loyalty    in    Charles    I.'s    time.     That 
gentleman  married   Elizabeth  Drydcn,  a  member  of  the  family  of  the 
poet.        Sir   Walter   Scott   gives,   with   his   characteristic    minuteness 


SWIFT  3 

seven  months  after  the  death  of  his  father,  who  had 
come  to  practise  there  as  a  lawyer.  The  boy  went 
to  school  at  Kilkenny,  and  afterwards  to  Trinity 
College,  Dublin,  where  he  got  a  degree  with  diffi- 
5  culty,  and  was  wild,  and  witty,  and  poor.  In  1688, 
by  the  recommendation  of  his  mother,  Swift  was  re- 
ceived into  the  family  of  Sir  William  Temple,  who 
had  known  Mrs.  Swift  in  Ireland.  He  left  his  pa- 
tron in  1694,  and  the  next  year  took  orders  in  Dub- 

lolin.  But  he  threw  up  the  small  Irish  preferment 
which  he  got  and  returned  to  Temple,  in  whose 
family  he  remained  until  Sir  William's  death  in 
1699.  His  hopes  of  advancement  in  England  failing, 
Swift  returned  to  Ireland,  and  took  the  living  of 

15  Laracor.    Hither  he  invited  Esther  Johnson,*  Tem- 

in  such  points,  the  exact  relationship  between  these  famous  men. 
Swift  was  "  the  son  of  Dryden's  second  cousin."  Swift,  too,  was 
the  enemy  of  Dryden's  reputation.  Witness  the  "  Battle  of  the 
Books": — "The  difference  was  greatest  among  the  horse,"  says 
20 he  of  the  moderns,  "where  every  private  trooper  pretended  to  the 
command,  from  Tasso  and  Milton  to  Dryden  and  Withers."  And 
in  Poetry,  a  Rhapsody,  he  advises  the  poetaster  to — 

"  Read  all  the  Prefaces  of  Dryden, 
For  these  our  critics  much  confide  in, 
5  Though   merely  writ,   at  first  for   filling. 

To  raise  the  volume's  price  a  shilling." 

•  "  Cousin  Swift,  you  will  never  be  a  poet,"  was  the  phrase  of  Dryden 
to  his  kinsman,  which  remained  alive  in  a  memory  tenacious  of 
such   matters. 

„„  *  "  Miss  Hetty  "  she  was  called  in  the  family — where  her  face, 
and  her  dress,  and  Sir  William's  treatment  of  her,  all  made  the  real 
fact  about  her  birth  plain  enough.  Sir  William  left  her  a  thousand 
pounds.  [The  statement  that  Esther  Johnson  was  Temple's  natural 
daughter,  was  first  made  by  a  writer  in  the  Gentleman' s  Magazine  for 

35  i757>  who  also  asserted  that  Swift  was  Temple's  natural  son;  and 
that  a  discovery  of  their  relationship  was  the  secret  of  Swift's  mel- 
ancholy. The  statement  about  Swift  is  inconsistent  with  known 
dates.  The  story  about  Esther  may  be  true,  but  it  depends  mainly 
upon   late   and   anonymous   evidence.] 


4  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

pie's  natural  daughter,  with  whom  he  had  con- 
tracted a  tender  friendship  while  they  were  both 
dependants  of  Temple's.  And  with  an  occasional 
visit  to  England,  Swift  now  passed  nine  years  at 
home.  5 

In  1710  he  came  to  England,  and,  with  a  brief 
visit  to  Ireland,  during  which  he  took  possession 
of  his  deanery  of  Saint  Patrick,  he  now  passed  four 
years  in  England,  taking  the  most  distinguished 
part  in  the  political  transactions  which  terminated  10 
with  the  death  of  Queen  Anne.  After  her  death, 
his  party  disgraced,  and  his  hopes  of  ambition  over, 
Swift  returned  to  Dublin,  where  he  remained  twelve 
years.  In  this  time  he  wrote  the  famous  "  Dra- 
pier's  Letters  "  and  "  Gulliver's  Travels."  He  mar-  ^5 
ried  *  Esther  Johnson  (Stella),  and  buried  Esther 
\'anhomrigh  (Vanessa),  who  had  followed  him  to 
Ireland  from  London,  where  she  had  contracted  a 
violent  passion  for  him.  In  1726  and  1727  Swift 
was  in  England,  which  he  quitted  for  the  last  time  20 
on  hearing  of  his  wife's  illness.  Stella  died  in  Jan- 
uary 1728,  and  Swift  not  until  1745,  having  passed 
the  last  five  of  the  seventy-eight  years  of  his 
life  with  an  impaired  intellect,  and  keepers  to  watch 
him.f  25 

*  The  marriage  is  accepted  by  Swift's  last  biographer.  Sir  H.  Craik. 
It  was  disbelieved  by   Forster,  and  cannot  be  regarded  as  certain. 

t  Sometimes,  during  his  mental  affliction,  he  continued  walking 
about  the  house  for  many  consecutive  hours;  sometimes  he  re- 
mained in  a  kind  of  torpor.  At  times  he  would  seem  to  struggle  to  30 
bring  into  distinct  consciousness,  and  shape  into  expression  the  in- 
tellect that  lay  smothering  under  gloomy  obstruction  in  him.  A 
pier-glass  falling  by  accident,  nearly  fell  on  him.  He  said  he  wished 
it  had  !  He  once  repeated  slowly  several  times,  "  I  am  what  I  am." 
The  last  thing  he  wrote  was  an  epigram  on  the  building  of  a  maga-35 


SWIFT  5 

You  know,  of  course,  that  Swift  has  had  many 
biographers;  his  Hfe  has  been  told  by  the  kindest 
and  most  good-natured  of  men,  Scott,  who  admires 
but  can't  bring  himself  to  love  him;  and  by  stout 
5  old  Johnson,*  who,  forced  to  admit  him  into  the 
company  of  poets,  receives  the  famous  Irishman, 
and  takes  ofif  his  hat  to  him  with  a  bow  of  surly 
recognition,  scans  him  from  head  to  foot,  and 
passes  over  to  the  other  side  of  the  street.  Doctor 
lo  (afterwards  Sir  W.  R.)  Wilde  of  Dublin,t  who  has 

zine  for  arms  and  stores,  which  was  pointed  out  to  him  as  he  went 
abroad  during  his  mental  disease: — 

"  Behold  a  proof  of  Irish   sense: 
Here  Irish  wit  is  seen: 
15  When  nothing's  left  that's  worth  defence, 

They  build  a  magazine  !  " 

*  Besides  these  famous  books  of  Scott's  and  Johnson's,  there  is  a 
copious  "  Life  "  by  Thomas  Sheridan  (Doctor  Johnson's  "  Sherry  "), 
father    of    Richard    Brinsley,    and    son    of    that    good-natured,    clever 

20  Irish  Doctor  Thomas  Sheridan,  Swift's  intimate,  who  lost  his  chap- 
laincy by  so  unluckily  choosing  for  a  text  on  the  King's  birthday, 
"  Sufficient  for  the  day  is  the  evil  thereof  !  "  Not  to  mention  less 
important  works,  there  is  also  the  Remarks  on  the  Life  and  Writings 
of   Doctor  Jonathan   Swift,    by   that    polite    and    dignified    writer,    the 

25  Earl  of  Orrery.  His  Lordship  is  said  to  have  striven  for  literary 
renown,  chiefly  that  he  might  make  up  for  the  slight  passed  on  him 
by  his  father,  who  left  his  library  away  from  him.  It  is  to  be  feared 
that  the  ink  he  used  to  wash  out  that  stain  only  made  it  look  big- 
ger.    He  had,  however,  known  Swift,  and  corresponded  with  people 

Til  who  knew  him.  His  work  (which  appeared  in  1751)  provoked  a  good 
deal  of  controversy,  calling  out,  among  other  brochures,  the  interest- 
ing Observations  on  Lord  Orrery's  Remarks,  &c.,  of  Doctor  Delany. 

t  Wilde's  book  was  written  on  the  occasion  of  the  remains  of  Swift 
and    Stella  being   brought   to   the   light   of   day — a   thing   which   hap- 

35  pened  in  1835,  when  certain  works  going  on  in  Saint  Patrick's 
Cathedral,  Dublin,  afforded  an  opportunity  of  their  being  examined. 
One  hears  with  surprise  of  these  skulls  "  going  the  rounds"  of 
houses,  and  being  made  the  objects  of  dilettante  curiosity.  The 
larynx  of  Swift  was  actually  carried   off  !     Phrenologists  had  a  low 

40  opinion  of  his   intellect  from   the  observations  they  took. 

Wilde  traces  the  symptoms  of  ill-health  in  Swift,  as  detailed  in  his 
writings   from   time   to   time.     He   observes,   likewise,   that   the   skull 


6  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

written  a  most  interesting  volume  on  the  closing 
years  of  Swift's  life,  calls  Johnson  "  the  most, 
malignant  of  his  biographers:  "  it  is  not  easy  for  an 
English  critic  to  please  Irishmen — perhaps  to  try 
and  please  them.  And  yet  Johnson  truly  admires  5 
Swift:  Johnson  does  not  quarrel  with  Swift's 
change  of  politics,  or  doubt  his  sincerity  of  religion: 
about  the  famous  Stella  and  Vanessa  controversy 
the  Doctor  does  not  bear  very  hardly  on  Swift.  But 
he  could  not  give  the  Dean  that  honest  hand  of  his;  10 
the  stout  old  man  puts  it  into  his  breast,  and  moves 
off  from  him.* 

Would  we  have  liked  to  live  with  him?  That  is 
a  question  which,  in  dealing  with  these  people's 
works,  and  thinking  of  their  lives  and  peculiarities,  15 
every  reader  of  biographies  must  put  to  himself. 
Would  you  have  liked  to  be  a  friend  of  the  great 
Dean?  I  should  like  to  have  been  Shakspeare's 
shoeblack — just  to  have  lived  in  his  house,  just  to 
have  worshipped  him — to  have  run  on  his  errands,  20 
and  seen  that  sweet  serene  face.  I  should  like,  as  a 
young  man,  to  have  lived  on  Fielding's  staircase  in 
the  Temple,  and  after  helping  him  up  to  bed  per- 
haps, and  opening  his  door  with  his  latchkey,  to 
have  shaken  hands  with  him  in  the  morning,  and  25 


gave  evidence  of  "  diseased  action  "  of  the  brain  during  life — such  as 
would  be  produced  by  an  increasing  tendency  to  "  cerebral  conges- 
tion." [In  1882  Dr.  Buckneli  wrote  an  interesting  article  to  show 
that  Swift's  disease  was  '  labyrinthine  vertigo,"  an  affection  of  the 
ear,  which  would  account  for  some  of  the  symptoms.]  go 

*  "  lie  [Doctor  Johnson]  seemed  to  me  to  have  an  unaccountable 
prejudice  against  Swift;  for  I  once  took  the  liberty  to  ask  him  if 
Swift  had  personally  offended  him,  and  he  told  me  he  had  not." — 
Boswell's   Tour  to  the  Hebrides. 


SWIFT  7- 

heard  him  talk  and  crack  jokes  over  his  breakfast 
and  his  mug^of  small  beer.  Who  would  not  give 
something  to  pass  a  night  at  the  club  with  Johnson, 
and    Goldsmith,   and   James    Boswell,    Esquire,    of 

5  Auchinleck?  The  charm  of  Addison's  companion- 
ship and  conversation  has  passed  to  us  by  fond  tra- 
dition— but  Swift?  If  you  had  been  his  inferior 
in  parts  (and  that,  with  a  great  respect  for  all  per- 
sons present,  I  fear  is  only  very  likely),  his  equal 

loin  mere  social  station,  he  would  have  bullied, 
scorned,  and  insulted  you;  if,  undeterred  by  his 
great  reputation,  you  had  met  him  like  a  man,  he 
would  have  quailed  before  you,*  and  not  had  the 
pluck  to  reply,  and  gone  home,  and  years  after  writ- 

15  ten  a  foul  epigram  about  you — watched  for  you  in 
a  sewer,  and  come  out  to  assail  you  with  a  coward's 

*-  Few  men,  to  be  sure,  dared  this  experiment,  but  yet  their 
success  was  encouraging.  One  gentleman  made  a  point  of  asking 
the   Dean  whether  his   uncle   Godwin  had   not   given  him  his  educa- 

20tion.      Swift,    who    hated    that    subject    cordially,    and,    indeed,    cared 

little  for  his  kindred,  said  sternly,  "  Yes;    he  gave  me  the  education 

of  a   dog."     "  Then,    sir,"   cried   the   other,    striking   his    fist   on   the 

table,   "  you  have  not  the  gratitude  of  a  dog  ! 

Other  occasions  there  were  when  a  bold  face  gave  the  Dean  pause, 

25  even  after  his  Irish  almost-royal  position  was  established.  But  he 
brought  himself  into  greater  danger  on  a  certain  occasion,  and  the 
amusing  circumstances  may  be  once  more  repeated  here.  He  had 
unsparingly  lashed  the  notable  Dublin  lawyer,  Mr.  Serjeant  Bettes- 
worth — 

30  "  Thus  at  the  bar,  the  booby  Bettesworth, 

Though  half-a-crown  o'erpays  his  sweat's  worth, 
Who  knows  in  law  nor  text  nor  margent. 
Calls  Singleton  his  brother-serjeant  !  " 

The  Serjeant,  it  is  said,  swore  to  have  his  life.  He  presented  him- 
35  self  at  the  deanery.  The  Dean  asked  his  name.  "  Sir,  I  am  Ser- 
jeant  Bett-es-worth." 

"  In  what  regiment,  pray  ?  "  asked  Swift. 

A  guard  of  volunteers  formed  themselves  to  defend  the  Dean  at 
this  time. 


8  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

blow  and  a  dirty  bludgeon.  If  you  had  been  a  lord 
with  a  blue  riband,  who  flattered  his  vanity,  or 
could  help  his  ambition,  he  would  have  been  the 
most  delightful  company  in  the  world.  He  would 
have  been  so  manly,  so  sarcastic,  so  bright,  odd,  5 
and  original,  that  you  might  think  he  had  no  object 
in  view  but  the  indulgence  of  his  humour,  and  that 
he  was  the  most  reckless  simple  creature  in  the 
world.  How  he  would  have  torn  your  enemies  to 
pieces  for  you!  and  made  fun  of  the  Opposition!  10 
His  servility  was  so  boisterous  that  it  looked  like 
independence;  *  he  would  have  done  your  errands, 
but  with  the  air  of  patronising  you ;  and  after  fight- 
ing your  battles,  masked,  in  the  street  or  the  press, 
would  have  kept  on  his  hat  before  your  wife  and  15 
daughters  in  the  drawing-room,  content  to  take  that 
sort  of  pay  for  his  tremendous  services  as  a  bravo.f 

•  "  But,  my  Hamilton,  I  will  never  hide  the  freedom  of  my  senti- 
ments from  you.  I  am  much  inclined  to  believe  that  the  temper  of 
my  friend  Swift  might  occasion  his  English  friends  to  wish  him  20 
happily  and  properly  promoted  at  a  distance.  His  spirit,  for  I  would 
give  it  the  softest  name,  was  ever  untractable.  The  motions  of  his 
genius  were  often  irregular.  He  assumed  more  the  air  of  a  patron 
than  of  a*  friend.  He  affected  rather  to  dictate  than  advise."— 
Orrery.  25 

t  "  .  .  .  An  anecdote,  which,  though  only  told  by  Mrs.  Pilking- 
ton,  is  well  attested,  bears,  that  the  last  time  he  was  in  London  he 
went  to  dine  with  the  Earl  of  Burlington,  who  was  newly  married. 
The  Earl,  it  is  supposed,  being  willing  to  have  a  little  diversion, 
did  not  introduce  him  to  his  lady,  nor  mention  his  name.  After  30 
dinner  said  the  Dean,  '  Lady  Burlington,  I  hear  you  can  sing;  sing 
me  a  song.'  The  lady  looked  on  this  unceremonious  manner  of 
asking  a  favour  with  distaste,  and  positively  refused.  He  said,  '  She 
should  sing,  or  he  would  make  her.  Why,  madam,  I  suppose  you 
take  me  for  one  of  your  poor  English  hedge-parsons;  sing  when  35' 
I  bid  you.'  As  the  Earl  did  nothing  but  laugh  at  this  freedom,  the 
lady  was  so  vexed  that  she  burst  into  tears  and  retired.  His  first 
compliment  to  her  when  he  saw  her  again  was,  '  Pray,  madam,  are 
you  as  proud  and  ill-natured  now  as  when  I  saw  you  last  ?  '  To 
which   she  answered   with   great   good-humour,  'No,   Mr.   Dean;     I'll  40 


SWIFT  9 

He  says  as  much  himself  in  one  of  his  letters  to 
Bolingbroke: — "All  my  endeavours  to  distinguish 
myself  were  only  for  want  of  a  great  title  and  for- 
tune, that  I  might  be  used  like  a  lord  by  those  who 

shave  an  opinion  of  my  parts;  whether  right  or 
wrong  is  no  great  matter.  And  so  the  reputation 
of  wit  and  great  learning  does  the  ofhce  of  a  blue 
riband  or  a  coach-and-six."  * 

Could  there  be  a  greater  candour?    It  is  an  out- 

10 law,  who  says,  "These  are  my  brains;  with  these 
I'll  win  titles  and  compete  with  fortune.  These  are 
my  bullets;  these  I'll  turn  into  gold;  "  and  he  hears 
the  sound  of  coaches  and  six,  takes  the  road  like 
Macheath,  and  makes  society  stand  and  deliver. 

15  They  are  all  on  their  knees  before  him.  Down  ^o 
my  Lord  Bishop's  apron,  and  his  Grace's  blue  ri- 
band, and  my  Lady's  brocade  petticoat  in  the  mud. 
He  eases  the  one  of  a  living,  the  other  of  a  patent 
place,  the  third  of  a  little  snug  post  about  the  Court, 

20 and  gives  them  over  to  followers  of  his  own.  The 
great  prize  has  not  come  yet.    The  coach  with  the 

sing  for  you  if  you  please.'  From  which  time  he  conceived  a  great 
esteem  for  her."— Scott's  Life.  "...  He  had  not  the  least  tincture 
of  vanity  in  his  conversation.     He  was,  perhaps,  as  he  said  himself, 

25  too  proud  to  be  vain.  When  he  was  polite,  it  was  in  a  manner 
entirely  his  own.  In  his  friendships  he  was  constant  and  undis- 
guised.    He  was  the  same  in  his  enmities." — Orrcr-^. 

*  "  I  make  no  figure  but  at  Court,  where  I  affect  to  turn  from  a 
lord  to  the  meanest  of  my  acquaintances." — Journal  to  Stella. 

30     "  I  am  plagued  with  bad  authors,  verse  and  prose,  who  send  me 

their  books   and  poems,   the  vilest  I   ever  saw;    but  I   have  given 

their   names   to   my   man,    never   to   let   them    see   me."— Journal   to 

Stella. 

The  following  curious  paragraph  illustrates  the  life  of  a  courtier:— 

35  "  Did  I  ever  tell  you  that  the  Lord  Treasurer  hears  ill  with  the 
left  ear,  just  as'  I  do  ?  ...  I  dare  not  tell  him  that  I  am  so,  for  fear 
he  should  think  that  I  counterfeited  to  make  my  court  !  "—Journal  to 
Stella. 


lO  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

mitre  and  crozier  in  it,  which  he  intends  to  have  for 
his  share,  has  been  delayed  on  the  way  from-  Saint 
James's;  and  he  waits  and  waits  until  nig-htfall, 
when  his  runners  come  and  tell  him  that  the  coach 
has  taken  a  dififerent  road,  and  escaped  him.  So  he  5 
fires  his  pistols  into  the  air  with  a  curse,  and  rides 
away  into  his  own  country.* 

*  The  war   of  pamphlets   was   carried   on   fiercely  on   one   side   and 
the   other:     and   the   Whig   attacks   made   the   Ministry   Swift   served 
very    sore.     Bolingbroke    laid    hold    of    several    of    the    Opposition  lO 
pamphleteers,  and   bewails   their   "  factitiousness  "   in   the  following 
letter:—  .. 

BoVmghrokt  to  the  Earl  of  Strafford.  "  ' 

"  Whitehall:    July  23rd,  1712.  ■ 
"It  is  a  melancholy  consideration  that  the  laws  of  our  coUiitryi5 
are  too  weak  to   punish  efifectually  those  factitious   scribblers,   who     : 
presume    to    blacken    the    brightest    characters,    and    to    give    even 
scurrilous  language  to  those  who  are  in  the  first  degrees  of  honour.- 
This,  my  Lord,  among  others,  is  a  symptom  of  the   decayed  condi- 
tion of  our  Government,  and  serves  to  show  how  fatally  we  mistake  20 
.  licentiousness  for  liberty.     All  I  could  do  was  to  take  up  Hart,  the 
printer,   to  send   him   to   Newgate,   and   to  bind   him   over  upon   bail 
to  be  prosecuted;    this  I   have  done;    and  if  I   can  arrive  at  legal 
proof   against   the   author,    Ridpath,    he   shall   have   the    same   treat-    _ 
ment."  25 

Swift  was  not  behind  his  illustrious '  friend  in  this  virtuous  in- 
dignation. In  the  history  of  the  last  four  years  of  the  Queen,  the 
Dean  speaks  in  the  most  edifying  manner  of  the  licentiousness  of 
the  press  and  the  abusive  language  of  the  other  party: — 

-"  It  must  be  ackaowledged  that  the  bad  practices  of  printers  have  30 
been  such  as  to  deserve  the  severest  animadversion  from  the  pub- 
lic. .  .  .  The  adverse  party,  full  of  rage  pnd  leisure  since  their  fall,, 
and  unanimous  in  their  cause,  employ  a  set  of  writers  by  subscrip- 
tion, who  are  well  versed  in  all  the  topics  of  defamation,  and  have- 
a   style   and   genius   levelled   to   the   generality   of   their   readers.  ...  35 
However,  the  mischiefs  of  the  press  were  too  exorbitant  to  be  cured 
by  such  a  remedy  as  a  tax  upon  small  papers,  and  a  Bill  for  a  much' 
more  effectual  regulation  of  it  was  brought  into  the  House  of  Com-:, 
mons,  but  so  late  in  the  session  that  there  was  no  time  to  pass  it, 
for  there  always  appeared  an  unwillingness  to  cramp  overmuch  the  40 
liberty  of  the  press." 

.But  to  a  clause  in   the  proposed   Bill,   that  the  names  of  atuhors 
should  be  set  to  every  printed  book,  pamphlet,  or  paper,  his  Rever*- 


SWIFT  -II 

Swift's  seems  to  me  to  be  as  good  a  name  to  point 
a  moral  or  adorn  a  tale  of  ambition  as  any  hero's 
that  ever  lived  and  failed.  But  we  must  remember 
that  the  morality  was  lax — that  other  gentlemen 
5  besides  himself  took  the  road  in  his  day — that  pub- 
lic society  was  in  a  strange  disordered  condition, 
and  the  State  was  ravaged  by  other  condottieri. 
The  Boyne  was  being  fought  and  won,  and  lost — 

ence  objects  altogether:  for.  says  lie,  "  besides  the  objection  to 
lOthis  clause  from  the  practice  of  pious  men,  who,  in  publishing  ex- 
cellent v.-ritings  for  the  service  of  religion,  have  chosen,  out  of 
an  humble  Christian  spirit,  to  conceal  their  7tamcs,  it  is  certain  that  all 
persons  of  true  genius  or  knowledge  have  an  invincible  modesty 
and  suspicion  of  themselves  upon  first  sending  their  thoughts  into 
1 5 the  world." 

This   "  invincible   modesty  "   was   no  doubt   the   sole  reason  which 

induced   the    Dean   to   keep   the   secret   of   the   "  Drapier's    Letters  " 

and  a  hundred  humble  Christian  works  of  which  he  was  the  author. 

As    for    the    Opposition,    the    Doctor   was   for    dealing    severely   with 

20them.     He  writes  to  Stella: — 

Journal     Letter  XIX. 

"  London:    March  2Sth,  1710-11. 
"...  We  have  let  Guiscard  be  buried  at  last,  after  showing  him 
pickled   'n   a   trough    this   fortnight   for   twopence   a   piece;     and   the 

25  fellow  that  showed  would  point  to  his  body  and  say,  '  See,  gentle- 
men, this  is  the  wound  that  was  given  him  by  his  Grace  the  Duke 
of  Ormond;  '  and  'This  is  the  wound,'  &c. ;  and  then  the  show 
was  over,  and  another  set  of  rabble  came  in.  'Tis  hard  that  our 
laws   would   not   suffer   us   to   hang   his   body   in    chains,   because   he 

3c  was  not  tried;  and  in  the  eye  of  the  law  every  man  is  innocent 
till  then.  ..." 

Journal.    Letter  XXV U. 

London:    July  25th,  1711. 
"  I  was  this  afternoon  with  Mr.  Secretary  at  his  office,  and  helped 
35  to   hinder   a    man    of   his   pardon,    who    was    condemned    for   a    rape. 
"      The  Under-Secretary  was  willing  to  save  him;    but  I  told  the  Secre- 
tary he  could  not  pardon  him  without  a  favourable  report  from  the 
Judge;     besides,    he   was   a    fiddler,    and   consequently   a   rogue,    and 
deserved  hanging  for  something  else,  and  so  he  shall  swing." 


12  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

the  bells  run,!:^  in  William's  victory,  in  the  very  same 
tone  with  which  they  would  have  pealed  for  Ja"mes's. 
Men  were  loose  upon  politics,  and  had  to  shift  for 
themselves.  They,  as  well  as  old  beliefs  and  insti- 
tutions, had  lost  their  moorings  and  gone  adrift  in  5 
the  storm.  As  in  the  South  Sea  Bubble,  almost 
everybody  gambled;  as  in  the  Railway  mania — 
not  many  centuries  ago — almost  every  one  took  his 
vmlucky  share:  a  man  of  that  time,  of  the  vast  tal- 
ents and  ambition  of  Swift,  could  scarce  do  other- 10 
wise  than  grasp  at  his  prize,  and  make  his  spring  at 
his  opportunity.  His  bitterness,  his  scorn,  his  rage, 
his  subsequent  misanthropy  are  ascribed  by  some 
panegyrists  to  a  deliberate  conviction  of  mankind's 
unworthiness,  and  a  desire  to  amend  them  by  casti-i5 
gation.  His  youth  was  bitter,  as  that  of  a  great  ge- 
nius bound  down  by  ignoble  ties,  and  powerless  in  a 
mean  dependence;  his  age  was  bitter,*  like  that  of 
a  great  genius,  that  had  fought  the  battle  and  nearly 
won  it,  and  lost  it,  and  thought  of  it  afterwards,2o 
writhing  in  a  lonely  exile.  A  man  may  attribute  to 
the  gods,  if  he  likes,  what  is  caused  by  his  own  fury, 
Or  disappointment,  or  self-will.  What  public  man 
— what  statesman  projecting  a  coup — what  king  de- 
termined on  an  invasion  of  his  neighbour — whatas 
satirist  meditating  an  onslaught  on  society  or  an 
individual,  can't  give  a  pretext  for  his  move?  There 
was  a  French  General  the  other  day  who  proposed 
to  march  into  this  country  and  put  it  to  sack  and 
pillage,  in  revenge  for  humanity  outraged  by  our3o 

•  It   was   his   constant   practice   to   keep   his   birthday   as   a   day   of 
mourning. 


.$•  WIFT  1 3 

conduct  at  Copenhagen:  there  is  always  some  ex- 
cuse for  men  of  the  aggressive  turn.  They  are  of 
their  nature  warhke,  predatory,  eager  for  fight, 
phmder,  dominion/^ 
5  As  fierce  a  beak  and  talon  as  ever  struck — as 
strong  a  wing  as  ever  beat,  belonged  to  Swift.  I 
am  glad,  for  one,  that  fate  wrested  the  prey  out  of 
his  claws,  and  cut  his  wings  and  chained  him.  One 
can  gaze,  and  not  without  awe  and  pity,   at  the 

10  lonely  eagle  chained  behind  the  bars. 

That  Swift  was  born  at  No.  y  Hoey's  Court,  Dub- 
lin, on  the  30th  November  1667,  is  a  certain  fact, 
of  which  nobody  will  deny  the  sister  island  the 
honour  and  glory;   but,  it  seems  to  me,  he  was  no 

15  more  an  Irishman  than  a  man  born  of  English  par- 
ents at  Calcutta  is  a  Hindoo. f     Goldsmith  was  an 

*  "  These  devils  of  Grub  Street  rogues,  that  write  the  Flying  Post 
and  Medley  in  one  paper,  will  not  be  quiet.     They  are  always  maul- 
ing Lord  Treasurer,   Lord   Bolingbroke,  and  me.     We  have  the  dog 
20under    prosecution,    but    Bolingbroke   is    not    active    enough;     but    I 
hope   to   swinge   him.      He   is   a   Scotch   rogue,    one    Ridpath.     They 
get  out  upon  bail,  and  write  on.     We  take  them  again,  and  get  fresh 
bail ;    so  it  goes  round." — Journal  to  Stella. 
t  Swift   was   by   no   means   inclined   to   forget   such   considerations; 
25  and    his    English    birth    makes    its    mark,    strikingly    enough,    every 
now   and   then   in   his  writings.     Thus   in   a   letter  to   Pope    (Scott's 
Swift,  vol.  xix.   p.  97),  he  says: — 

"  W^e  have  had  your  volumes  of  letters.  .  .  .  Some  of  those  who 
highly  value  you,  and  a  few  who  knew  you  personally,  are  grieved 
30to  find  you  make  no  distinction  between  the  English  gentry  of  this 
kingdom,  and  the  savage  old  Irish  (who  are  only  the  vulgar,  and 
some  gentlemen  who  live  in  the  Irish  parts  of  the  kingdom) ;  but 
the  English  colonies,  who  are  three  parts  in  four,  are  much  more 
civilised  than  many  counties  in  England,  and  speak  better  English, 
35  and  are  much  better  bred." 

And   again,   in   the   fourth    Drapier's    Letter,    we   have   the   follow- 
ing:— 

"  A    short   paper,    printed   at    Bristol,    and    reprinted   here,    reports 

Mr.  W'ood  to  say  '  that  he  wonders  at  the  impudence  and  insolence 

40 of  the  Irish  in  refusing  his  coin.'     When,  by  the  way,  it  is  the  true 


14  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

Irishman,  and  always  an  Irishman:  .Steele  was 
an  Irishman,  and  always  an  Irishman:  Swift's  heart 
was  English  and  in  England,  his  habits  English, 
his  logic  eminently  English;  his  statement  is 
elaborately  simple;  he  shuns  tropes  and  metaphors,  5 
and  uses  his  ideas  and  words  with  a  wise  thrift  and 
economy,  as  he  used  his  money:  with  which  he 
could  be  generous  and  splendid  upon  great  occa- 
sions, but  which  he  husbanded  when  there  was  no 
need  to  spend  it.  He  never,  indulges  in  needless  10 
extravagance  of  rhetoric,  lavish  epithets,  profuse 
imagery.  He  lays  his  opinion  before  you  with  a 
grave  simplicity  and  a  perfect  neatness.*  Dreading 
ridicule  too,  as  a  man  of  his  humour — above  all,  an 
Englishman  of  his  humour — certainly  would,  he  is  15 

English  people  of  Ireland  who  refuse  it,  although  we  take  it  for 
granted  that  the  Irish  will  do  so  too  whenever  they  are  asked."— 
Scott's  Szvift,  vol.  vi.  p.  453. 

He  goes  further,  in  a  good-humoured  satirical  paper,  On  Barbarom 
Denominations  in  Ireland,  where   (after  abusing,   as  he  was  wont,  the  20 
Scotch   cadence,   as   well   as   expression)    he   advances   to   the   "  Irish 
Brogue,"    and    speaking    of    the    "  censure  "    which    it    brings    down, 
says: — 

"  And  what  is  yet  worse,  it  is  too  well  known  that  the  bad  conse- 
quence of  this  opinion  affects  those  among  us  who  are  not  the  least  25 
liable  to-  such  reproaches  farther  than  the  misfortune  of  being  born 
in   Ireland,   although   of   English   parents,   and   whose   education   has 
been  chiefly  in  that  kingdom." — Ibid.  vol.  vii.   p.   149. 

But,   indeed,   if  we  are  to   make  anything  of   Race  at  all,   we  must 
call    that    man    an    Englishman    whose    father    comes    from    an    old  30 
Yorkshire  family,  and  his  mother  from  an  old  Leicestershire  one  1 

*  "  The   style   of   his   conversation   was   very   much   of   a   piece   with 
that  of  his  writings,   concise  and  clear  and   strong.     Being  one   day 
at  a  Sheriff's  feast,  who  amongst  other  toasts  called  out  to  him,  '  Mr. 
Dean,   The   Trade   of   Ireland  !  '   he   answered   quick:     '  Sir,    I    drink  35 
no    memories  !  '  .  .  . 

"  Happening  to  be  in  company  with  a  petulant  young  man  who 
prided  himself  on  saying  pert  things  .  .  .  and  who  cried  out — '  You 
must  know,  Mr.  Dean,  that  I  set  up  for  a  wit  !  '  '  Do  you  so  ?  ' 
says  the  Dean.     '  Take  my  advice,  and  sit  down  again  !  '  4° 

"  At  another  time,  being  in  company,  where  a  lady  whisking  her 


SWIPT  1$ 

afraid  to  use  the  poetical  power  which  he  really  pos- 
sessed; one  often  fancies  in  reading  him  that  he 
dares  not  be  eloquent  when  he  might;  that  he  does 
not  speak  above  his  voice,  as  it  were,  and  the  tone 
5  of  society. 

His  initiation  into  politics,  his  knowledge  of  busi- 
ness, his  knowledge  of  polite  life,  his  acquaintance 
with  literature  even,  which  he  could  not  have  pur- 
sued very  sedulously  during  that  reckless  career  at 

lo  Dublin,  Swift  got  under  the  roof  of  Sir  William 
Temple.  He  was  fond  of  telling  in  after  life  what 
quantities  of  books  he  devoured  there,  and  how 
King  William  taught  him  to  cut  asparagus  in  the 
Dutch  fashion.    It  was  at  Shene  and  at  Moor  Park, 

15  with  a  salary  of  twenty  pounds  and  a  dinner  at  the 
upper  servants'  table,  that  this  great  and  lonely 
Swift  passed  a  ten  years'  apprenticeship — wore  a 
cassock  that  was  only  not  a  livery — bent  down  a 
knee  as  proud  as  Lucifer's  to  supplicate  my  Lady's 

20  good  graces,  or  run  on  his  honour's  errands.*     It 

long   train    [long   trains    were    then    in    fashion]    swept    down    a    fine 
fiddle  and  broke  it;    Swift  cried  out— 

'  Mantua  vje  miserae  nimiuni  vicina  CremonK  !  '  " 

— Dr.    Delany:     Observations  upon  Lord  Orrery's   "Remarks,   &c.    on 

Z^Sicift."     London,   1754. 

*  "  Don't  you  remember  how  I  used  to  be  in  pain  when  Sir  Wil- 
liam Temple  would  look  cold  and  out  of  humour  for  three  or 
four  days,  and  I  used  to  suspect  a  hundred  reasons  ?  I  have 
plucked   up   my   spirits   since   then,   faith;     he   spoiled   a   fine   gentle- 

30man." — Journal  to  Stella. 

[It  should  be  added  that  this  statement  about  the  twenty  pounds 
a  year,  and  the  upper  servants'  table,  came  from  a  hostile  story  told 
long  afterwards  by  a  nephew  of  Temple  to  Richardson  the  novelist. 
It  is  probably  true  enough  of  Swift's  first  stay  as  a  raw  lad  in  the 

35family;    but  Temple  came  t)  value  Swift's  services  much  more  highly, 


1 6  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

was  here,  as  he  was  writing  at  Templets  table,  or 
following  his  patron's  walk,  that  he  saw  and  heard 
the  men  who  had  governed  the  great  world — meas- 
ured himself  with  them,  looking  up  from  liis  silent 
corner,  gauged  tlieir  brains,  weighed  their  wits,  5 
inmed  th-em,  and  tried  them,  and  marked  them. 
Ah!  what  platitudes  he  must  have  heard!  what 
feeble  jokes!  what  pompous  commonplaces!  what 
small  men  they  must  have  seemed  under  those 
enormous  periwigs,  to  the  swarthy,  uncouth,  silent  lo 
Irish  secretary.  I  wonder  whether  it  ever  struck 
Temple,  that  that  Irishman  was  his  master?  I  sup- 
pose that  dismal  conviction  did  not  present  itself 
under  the  ambrosial  wig,  or  Temple  could  never 
have  lived  with  Swift.  Swift  sickened,  rebelled,  left  15 
the  service — ate  humble  pie  and  came  back  again; 
and  so  for  ten  years  went  on,  gathering  learning, 
swallowing  scorn,  and  submitting  with  a  stealthy 
rage  to  his  fortune. 

Temple's  style  is  the  perfection  of  practised  and  20 
easy  good  breeding.  If  he  does  not  penetrate  very 
deeply  into  a  subject,  he  professes  a  very  gentle- 
manly acquaintance  with  it;  if  he  makes  rather  a 
parade  of  Latin,  it  was  the  custom  of  his  day,  as  it 
was  the  custom  for  a  gentleman  to  envelop  his  head  25 
in  a  periwig  and  his  hands  in  lace  ruffles.  If  he 
wears  buckles  and  square-toed  shoes,  he  steps  in 
them  with  a  consummate  grace,  and  you  never- 
hear  their  creak,  or  find  them  treading  upon  any 

and  induced  him  to  return  from  Ireland  by  promises  of  preferment.  3^^ 
Temple's    death    prevented    their   fulfilment,    but   it   is    clear    that    ht- 
had   come   to   treat   Swift  with   great   respect.] 


SWIFT  '  17 

lady's  train  or  any  rival's  heels  in  the  Court  crowd. 
When  that  grows  too  hot  or  too  agitated  for  him, 
he  pohtely  leaves  it.  He  retires  to  his  retreat  "of 
Shene  or  Moor  Park;    and  lets  the  King's  party 

sand  the  Prince  of  Orange's  party  battle  it  out 
among  themselves.  He  reveres  the  Sovereign  (and 
no  man  perhaps  ever  testified  to  ids  loysdit^'  by  so 
elegant  a  bow):  he  admires  the  Prince  of  Orange; 
but  there  is  one  person  whose  ease  and  comfort  he 

10  loves  more  than  all  the  princes  in  Christendom, 
and  that  valuable  member  of  society  is  himself, 
GuHelmus  Temple,  Baronettus.  One  sees  him  in 
his  retreat:  between  his  study-chair  and  his  tulip- 
beds.*  chpping  his  apricots  and  pruning  his   es- 

,-  *".  .  .  The  Epicureans  were  more  intelligible  in  their  notion, 
and  fortunate  in  their  expression,  when  they  placed  a  man's  hap- 
piness in  the  tranquillity  of  his  mind  and  indolence  of  body;  for 
while  we  are  composed  of  both,  I  doubt  both  must  have  a  share  in 
the  good  or  ill  we  feel.     As  men  of  several  languages  say  the  same 

20  things  in  very  different  words,  so  in  several  ages,  countries,  consti- 
tutions of  laws  and  religion,  the  same  thing  seems  to  be  meant  by 
very  different  expressions:  what  is  called  by  the  Stoics  apathy,  or 
dispassion;  by  the  sceptics,  indisturbance;  by  the  Molinists, 
quietism;    by  common  men,  peace  of  conscience — seems  all  to  mean 

25  but  great  tranquillity  of  mind.  .  .  .  For  this  reason  Epicurus  passed 
his  life  wholly  in  his  garden;  there  he  studied,  there  he  exercised, 
there  he  taught  his  philosophy;  and,  indeed,  no  other  sort  of  abode 
seems  to  contribute  so  much  to  both  the  tranquillity  of  mind  and 
indolence  of  body,  which  he  made  his  chief  ends.     The  sweetness  of 

30 the  air,  the  pleasantness  of  smell,  the  verdure  of  plants,  the  clean- 
ness and  lightness  of  food,  the  exercise  of  working  or  walking;  but, 
above  all,  the  exemption  from  cares  and  solicitude,  seem  equally  to 
favour  and  improve  both  contemplation  and  health,  the  enjoyment  of 
sense  and  imagination,   and   thereby  the  quiet  and  ease  both  of  the 

35  body  and  mind.  .  .  .  Where  Paradise  was,  has  been  much  debated, 
and  little  agreed;  but  what  sort  of  place  is  meant  by  it  may  per- 
haps easier  be  conjectured.  It  seems  to  have  been  a  Persian  word, 
since  Xenophon  and  other  Greek  authors  mention  it  as  what  was 
much   in   use  and   delight   among   the   kings   of  those   Eastern   coun- 

40 tries.  Strabo  describing  Jericho:  '  Ibi  est  palmetum,  cui  immixtse 
sunt    etiam    aliae    stirpes    hortenses,    locus    ferax    palmis    aburfdans. 


1 8  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

says, — the  statesman,  the  ambassador  no  more;  but 
the  philosopher,  the  Epicurean,  the  fine  gentleman 
and  courtier  at  Saint  James's  as  at  Shene;  where, 
in  place  of  kings  and  fair  ladies,  he  pays  his  court 
to  the  Ciceronian  majesty;  or  walks  a  minuet  with  5 
the  Epic  Muse;  or  dallies  by  the  south  wall  with 
the  ruddy  nymph  of  gardens. 

Temple  seems  to  have  received  and  exacted  a 
prodigious  deal  of  veneration  from  his  household, 
and  to  have  been  coaxed,  and  warmed,  and  cuddled  10 
by  the  people  round  about  him,  as  delicately  as  any 
c.f  the  plants  which  he  loved.  When  he  fell  ill  in 
1693,  the  household  was  aghast  at  his  indisposition; 
mild  Dorothea  his  wife,  the  best  companion  of  the 
best  of  men —  15 

"  Mild   Dorothea,   peaceful,   wise,  and   great, 
Trembing  beheld  the  doubtful  hand  of  fate." 

As  for  Dorinda,  his  sister, — 

"  Those  who  would  grief  describe,  might  come  iind  trace 
Its  watery  footsteps  in  Dorinda's  face.  20 

To  see  her  weep,  joy  every  face  forsook, 
And  grief  flung  sables  on  each  menial  look. 
The  humble  tribe  mourned  for  the  quickening  soul, 
That  furnished  spirit  and  motion  through  the  whole." 

spatio    stadiorum    centum,    totus    irriguus:     ibi    est    Regis    Balsami25 
paradisus.'  " — Essay  on  Gardens. 

In  the  same  famous  essay  Temple  speaks  of  a  friend,  whose  con- 
duct and  prudence  he  characteristically  admires:— 

"...  I  thought  it  very  prudent  in  a  gentleman  of  my  friends  in 
Staffordshire,  who  is  a  great  lover  of  his  garden,  to  pretend  no30 
higher,  though  his  soil  be  good  enough,  than  to  the  perfection  of 
plums;  and  in  these  (by  bestowing  south  walls  upon  them)  he  has 
very  well  succeeded,  which  he  could  never  have  done  in  attempts 
upon  peaches  and  grapes;  and  a  good  plum  is  certainly  better  than  an 
ill  peach."  35 


SWIFT  19 

Isn't  that  line  in  which  grief  is  described  as  putting 
the  menials  into  a  mourning  livery,  a  .fine  image? 
One  of  the  menials  wrote  it,  who  did  not  like  that 
Temple  livery  nor  those  twenty-pound  wages.  Can- 
5  not  one  fancy  the  uncouth  young  servitor,  with 
downcast  eyes,  books  and  papers  in  hand,  follow- 
ing at  his  honour's  heels  in  the  garden  walk;  or 
taking  his  honour's  orders  as  he  stands  by  the  great 
chair,  where  Sir  William  has  the  gout,  and  his  feet 
10  all  blistered  with  moxa?  When  Sir  William  has  the 
gout  or  scolds  it  must  be  hard  work  at  the  second 
table;*    the  Irish  secretary  owned  as  much  after- 

*  Swift's    Thoughts    on    Hanging. 
(Direction's  to  Servants.) 

15  "To  grow  old  in  the  office  of  a  footman  is  the  highest  of  all  in- 
dignities; therefore,  when  you  find  years  coming  on  without  hopes 
of  a  place  at  Court,  a  command  in  the  army,  a  succession  to  the 
stewardship,  an  employment  in  the  revenue  (which  two  last  you 
cannot   obtain   without  reading  and  writing),   or  running  away   with 

20  your  master's  niece  or  daughter,  I  directly  advise  you  to  go  upon 
the  road,  which  is  the  only  post  of  honour  left  you:  there  you  will 
meet  many  of  your  old  comrades,  and  live  a  short  life  and  a  merry 
one,  and  make  a  figure  at  your  exit,  wherein  I  will  give  you  some 
instructions. 

25  "  The  last  advice  I  give  you  relates  to  your  behaviour  when  you 
are  going  to  be  hanged:  which,  either  for  robbing  your  master,  for 
housebreaking,  or  going  upon  the  highway,  or  in  a  drunken  quarrel 
by  killing  the  first  man  you  meet,  may  very  probably  be  your  lot, 
and  is  owing  to  one  of  these  three  qualities:    either  a  love  of  good- 

30  fellowship,  a  generosity  of  mind,  or  too  much  vivacity  of  spirits. 
Your  good  behaviour  on  this  article  will  concern  your  whole  com- 
munity: deny  the  fact  with  all  solemnity  of  imprecations:  a  hun- 
dred of  your  brethren,  if  they  can  be  admitted,  will  attend  about  the 
bar,  and  be  ready  upon  demand  to  give  you  a  character  before  the 

35  court;  let  nothing  prevail  on  you  to  confess,  but  the  promise  of  a 
pardon  for  discovering  your  comrades:  but  I  suppose  all  this  to  be 
in  vain;  for  if  you  escape  now^  your  fate  will  be  the  same  another 
day.  Get  a  speech  to  be  written  by  the  best  author  of  Newgate: 
some   of  your   kind   wenches   will    provide   you   with    a   holland    shirt 

40  and  white  cap,  crowned  with  a  crimson  or  black  ribbon:    take  leave 


20  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

wards;  and  when  he  came  to  dinner,  how  he  must 
have  lashed  and  growled  and  torn  the  household 
with  his  gibes  and  scorn!  What  would  the  steward 
say  about  the  pride  of  them  Irish  schollards — and 
this  one  had  got  no  great  credit  even  at  his  Irish  5 
college,  if  the  truth  were  known — and  what  a  con- 
tempt his  Excellency's  own  gentleman  must  have 
had  for  Parson  Teague  from  Dublin!  (The  valets 
and  chaplains  were  always  at  war.  It  is  hard  to  say 
which  Swift  thought  the  more  contemptible.)  Andio 
what  must  have  been  the  sadness,  the  sadness  and 
terror,  of  the  housekeeper's  little  daughter  with  the 
curling  black  ringlets  and  the  sweet  smiling  face, 
when  the  secretary  who  teaches  her  to  read  and 
write,  and  whom  she  loves  and  reverences  above  alP5 
things — above  mother,  above  mild  Dorothea,  above 
that  tremendous  Sir  William  in  his  square  toes  and 
periwig, — when  Mr.  Swift  comes  down  from  his 
master  with  rage  in  his  heart,  and  has  not  a  kind 
word  even  for  little  Hester  Johnson?  20 

Perhaps,  for  the  Irish  secretary,  his  Excellency's 
condescension  was  even  more  cruel  than  his  frowns. 
Sir  William  would  perpetually  quote  Latin  and  the 
ancient  classics  a  propos  of  his  gardens  and  his 
Dutch  statues,  and  platcs-bandcs,  and  talk  about  25 
Epicurus  and  Diogenes  Laertius,  Julius  Caesar, 
Semiramis,    and   the   gardens   of   the   Hesperides, 

cheerfully  of  all  your  friends  in  Newgate:  mount  the  cart  with 
courage:  fall  on  your  knees;  lift  up  your  eyes;  hold  a  book  in  your 
hands,  although  you  cannot  read  a  word;  deny  the  fact  at  the  gal- 30 
lows;  kiss  and  forgive  the  hangman,  and  so  farewell:  you  shall  be 
buried  in  pomp  at  the  charge  of  the  fraternity:  the  surgeon  shall 
not  touch  a  limb  of  you;  and  your  frame  shall  continue  until  a  suc- 
cessor of  equal  renown  succeeds  in  your  place.  ..." 


SWIFT  21 

Msecenas,  Strabo  describing  Jericho,  and  the 
Assyrian  kings.  A  propos  of  beans,  he  would  men- 
tion Pythagoras's  precept  to  abstain  from  beans,  and 
that  this  precept  probably  meant  that  wise  men 
5  should  abstain  from  public  affairs.  He  is  a  placid 
Epicurean;  he  is  a  Pythagorean  philosopher;  he  is 
a  wise  man — that  is  the  deduction.  Does  not  Swift 
think  so?  One  can  imagine  the  downcast  eyes  lifted 
up  for  a  moment,  and  the  flash  of  scorn  which  they 

loemit.  Swift's  eyes  were  as  azure  as  the  heavens; 
Pope  says  nobly  (as  everything  Pope  said  and 
thought  of  his  friend  was  good  and  noble),  "  His 
eyes  are  as  azure  as  the  heavens,  and  have  a  charm- 
ing archness  in  them."    And  one  person  in  that 

15  household,  that  pompous,  stately,  kindly  Moor 
Park,  saw  heaven  nowhere  else. 

But  the  Temple  amenities  and  solemnities  did 
not  agree  with  Swift.  He  was  half-killed  with  a 
surfeit   of   Shene   pippins;    and   in   a    garden-seat 

20  which  he  devised  for  himself  at  Moor  Park,  and 

where   he   devoured   greedily  the   stock   of  books 

-     within  his  reach,  he  caught  a  vertigo  and  deafness 

which  punished  and  tormented  him  through  life. 

He  could  not  bear  the  place  or  the  servitude.   Even 

25  in  that  poem  of  courtly  condolence,  from  which  we 
have  quoted  a  few  lines  of  mock  melancholy,  he 
breaks  out  of  the  funereal  procession  with  a  mad 
shriek,  as  it  were,  and  rushes  away  crying  his  own 
grief,  cursing  his  own  fate,  foreboding  madness,  and 

30  forsaken  by  fortune,  and  even  hope. 

I  don't  know  anything  more  melancholy  than 
the  letter  to  Temple,  in  which,  after  having  broke 


22"  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

from  his  bondage,  the  poor  wretch  crouches  pit- 
eously  towards  his  cage  again,  and  deprecates  his, 
master's  anger.    He  asks  for  testimonials  for  orders, 

"  The  particulars  required  of  me  are  what  relate 
to  morals  and  learning;  and  the  reasons  of  quitting  5 
your  honour's  family— that  is,  whether  the  last  was 
occasioned  by  any  ill  action.    They  are  left  entirely 
to  your  honour's  mercy,  though  in  the  first  I  think 
I  cannot  reproach  myself  for  anything  further  than 
for  infirmities.     This  is  all  I  dare  at  present  beg  10 
from  your  honour,  under  circumstances  of  life  not 
worth  your  regard:    what  is  left  me  to  wish  (next 
to  the  health  and  prosperity  of  your  honour  and 
family)  is  that  Heaven  would  one  day  allow  me  the 
opportunity    af   leaving    my    acknowledgments    at  15 
your  feet.    I  beg  my  most  humble  duty  and  service 
be  presented  to  my  ladies,  your  honour's  lady  and 
sister," 

Can  prostration  fall  deeper?  could  a  slave  bow 
lower?*  ^^ 

*  "  He   continued   in   Sir  William  Temple's   house  till   the  death  of 
that  great  man." — Anecdotes  of  the  Family  of  Swift,  by  the  Dean. 

"  It  has  since  pleased  God  to  take  this  good  and  great  person  to 
himself." — Preface   to    Temple's   Works. 

On  all  public  occasions,  Swift  speaks  of  Sir  William  in  the  same  25 
tone.  [The  letter  given  above  was  written  6th  Octsber  1694,  and  is 
humiliating  enough.  Swift's  relation  to  Temple  changed,  as  already 
said.  The  passages,  however,  which  follow,  no  doubt  show  a  strong 
sense  of  "  indignities  "  at  one  time  or  other.]  But  the  reader  will 
better  understand  how  acutely  he  remembered  the  indignities  he  30 
suffered  in  his  household,  from  the  subjoined  extracts  from  the 
Journal  to  Stella: — 

"  I   called   at   Mr.    Secretary   the   other  day,   to   see  what  the  d 

ailed  him  on  Sunday:  I  made  him  a  very  proper  speech;  told  him 
1   observed   he   was   much   out   of  temper,   that   I    did   not   e.xpect   he  35 


SWIFT  23 

Twenty  years  afterwards  Bishop  Kennet,  de- 
scribing the  same  man,  says: — 

"  Dr.  Swift  came  into  the  cofifee-house  and  had  a 
bow  from  everybody  but  me.    When  I  came  to  the 

5  antechamber  [at  Court]  to  wait  before  prayers,  Dr. 
Swift  was  the  principal  man  of  talk  and  business. 
He  was  soliciting  the  Earl  of  Arran  to  speak  to  his 
brother,  the  Duke  of  Ormond,  to  get  a  place  for  a 
clergyman.    He  was  promising  Mr.  Thorold  to  un- 

lodertake,  with  my  Lord  Treasurer,  that  he  should 
obtain  a  salary  of  £200  per  annum  as  member  of 
the  English  Church  at  Rotterdam.  He  stopped  F, 
Gwynne,  Esquire,  going  into  the  Queen  with  the 
red  bag,  and  told  him  aloud,  he  had  something  to 

15  say  to  him  from  my  Lord  Treasurer.  He  took  out 
his  gold  watch,  and  telling  the  time  of  day,  com- 
plained that  it  was  very  late.  A  gentleman  said  he 
was  too  fast.    '  How  can  I  help  it,'  says  the  Doctor, 

would  tell  me  the  cause,  but  would  be  glad  to  see  he  was  in  better; 
20  and  one  thing  I   warned  him  of — never  to  appear  cold  to  me,  for  I 

would  not  be  treated  like  a  schoolboy;    that  I  had  felt  too  much  of 

that   in    my   life   already  "    {meaning   Sir   William   Temple),   &c.    &c. — 

Journal  to  Stella. 

"  I  am  thinking  what  a  veneration  we  used  to  have  for  Sir  William 
25  Temple  because  he  might  have  been  Secretary  of  State  at  fifty;    and 

here  is  a  young  fellow  hardly  thirty  in  that  employment." — Ibid. 
"  The  Secretary  is  as  easy  with  me  as   Mr.   Addison  was.     I  have 

often  thought  what  a  splutter  Sir  William  Temple  makes  about  being 

Secretary  of   State." — Ibid. 
30      "  Lord   Treasurer   has   had   an   ugly   fit   of  the   rheumatism,   but  is 

now   quite   well.     I   was   playing   at   one-and-thirty   with   him   and   his 

family  the  other  night.     He  gave  us  all  twelvepence  apiece  to  begin 

with;    it  put  me  in  mind  of  Sir  William  Temple."— Ibid. 

"  I   thought  I   saw  Jack   Temple   [nephew   to  Sir  William^   and  his 
35  wife   pass   by   me   to-day   in   their   coach;     but   I    took   no   notice   of 

them.     I  am  glad  I  have  wholly  shaken  off  that  family."— .S",  to  S-, 

Sept.   1710. 


24  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

'  if  the  courtiers  give  me  a  watch  that  won't  go 
right? '  Then  he  instructed  a  young  nobleman, 
that  the  best  poet  in  England  was  Mr.  Pope  (a 
papist),  who  had  begun  a  translation  of  Homer  into 
English,  for  which  he  would  have  them  all  sub-  5 
scribe :  '  For,'  says  he,  '  he  shall  not  begin  to  print 
till  I  have  a  thousand  guineas  for  him.'  *  Lord 
Treasurer,  after  leaving  the  Queen,  came  through 
the  room,  beckoning  Doctor  Swift  to  follow  him — 
both  went  ofif  just  before  prayers."f  lo 

There's  a  little  malice  in  the  Bishop's  "  just  before 
prayers." 

This  picture  of  the  great  Dean  seems  a  true  one, 
and  is  harsh,  though  not  altogether  unpleasant.   He 
was  doing  good,  and  to  deserving  men,  too,  in  the  15 
midst  of  these  intrigues  and  triumphs.     His  jour-     ■ 
nals  and  a  thousand  anecdotes  of  him  relate  his 
kind  acts  and  rough  manners.     His  hand  was  con- 
stantly stretched  out  to  relieve  an  honest  man — he 
was  cautious  about  his  money,  but  ready.     If  you  20 
were  in  a  strait,  would  you  like  such  a  benefactor? 
I  think  I  would  rather  have  had  a  potato  and  a 
friendly  word  from  Goldsmith  than  have  been  be- 

*  "  Swift  must  be  allowed,"  says  Doctor  Johnson,  "  for  a  time,  to 
have  dictated  the  political  opinions  of  the  English  nation."  25 

A  conversation  on  the  Dean's  pamphlets  excited  one  of  the  Doc- 
tor's liveliest  sallies.  "  One,  in  particular,  praised  his  Conduct  of 
the  Allies. — Johnson:  '  Sir,  his  Conduct  of  the  Allies  is  a  performance 
of  very  little  ability.  .  .  .  Why,  sir,  Tom  Davies  might  have  written 
the  Conduct  of  the  Allies  !  '  "— Boswell's  Life  of  Johnson.  30 

t  The  passage  as  quoted  in  the  text  is  slightly  abbreviated.  It 
may  be  observed  that  Swift  fulfilled  his  promises  of  support  to  the 
"  clergyman,"  Dr.  Fiddes,  author  of  a  good  life  of  Wolsey,  and  was 
very  useful  to  Pope.  Many  other  instances  could  be  given  c^  the 
"  kind   acts  "   mentioned   in   the   next   paragraph.  35 


SWIFT  25 

holden  to  the  Dean  for  a  guinea  and  a  dinner.*  He 
insulted  a  man  as  he  served  him,  made  women  cry, 
guests  look  foolish,  bullied  unlucky  friends,  and 
flung  his  benefactions  into  poor  men's  faces.  No; 
5  the  Dean  was  no  Irishman — no  Irishman  ever  gave 
but  with  a  kind  word  and  a  kind  heart. 

It  is  told,  as  if  it  were  to  Swift's  credit,  that  the 
Dean  of  Saint  Patrick's  performed  his  family  de- 
votions   every    morning    regularly,  but  with  such 

10  secrecy  that  the  guests  in  his  house  were  never  in 
the  least  aware  of  the  ceremony.  There  was  no 
need  surely  why  a  Church  dignitary  should  assem- 
ble his  family  privily  in  a  crypt,  and  as  if  he  was 
afraid   of  heathen  persecution.     But   I    think   the 

15  world  was  right,  and  the  bishops  who  advised 
Queen  Anne  when  they  counselled  her  not  to  ap- 
point the  author  of  the  '*  Tale  of  a  Tub  "  to  a 
bishopric,  gave  perfectly  good  advice.     The  man 

*  "  Whenever  he  fell  into  the  company  of  any  person  for  the  first 

2otime,  it  was  his  custom  to  try  their  tempers  and  disposition  by 
some  abrupt  question  that  bore  the  appearance  of  rudeness.  If  this 
were  well  taken,  and  answered  with  good-humour,  he  afterwards 
made  amends  by  his  civilities.  But  if  he  saw  any  marks  of  resent- 
ment, from  alarmed  pride,  vanity,  or  conceit,  he  dropped  all  further 

25  intercourse  with  the  party.  This  will  be  illustrated  by  an  anecdote 
of  that  sort  related  by  Mrs.  Pilkington.  After  supper,  the  Dean,  having 
decanted  a  bottle  of  wine,  poured  what  remained  into  a  glass,  and 
seeing  it  was  muddy,  presented  it  to  Mr.  Pilkington  to  drink  it. 
'  For,'  said  he,  "  I  always  keep  some  poor  parson  to  drink  the  foul 

30wine  for  me.'  Mr.  Pilkington,  entering  into  his  humour,  thanked 
him,  and  told  him  '  he  did  not  know  the  difference,  but  was  glad 
to  get  a  glass  at  any  rate.'     '  Why,  then,'  said  the  Dean,  '  you  shan't, 

for  I'll  drink  it  myself.     Why,  take  you,  you  are  wiser  than  a 

paltry  curate  whom   I   asked   to  dine  with  me  a  few  days  ago;     for 

35  upon  my  making  the  same  speech  to  him,  he  said  he  did  not  under- 
stand such  usage,  and  so  walked  off  without  his  dinner.  By  the 
same  token,  I  told  the  gentleman  who  recommended  him  to  me  that 
the  fellow  was  a  blockhead,  and  I  had  done  with  him.'  "— 
Sheridan's  Life  of  Swift. 


26  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

who  wrote  the  arguments  and  illustrations  in  that 
wild  book,  could  not  but  be  aware  what  must  be 
the  sequel  of  the  propositions  which  he  laid  down. 
The  boon  companion  of  Pope  and  Bolingbroke, 
who  chose  these  as  the  friends  of  his  life,  and  the  re-  5 
cipients  of  his  confidence  and  affection,  must  have 
heard  many  an  argument,  and  joined  in  many  a 
conversation  over  Pope's  port,  or  St.  John's  bur- 
gundy, which  would  not  bear  to  be  repeated  at 
other  men's  boards.  10 

I  know  of  few  things  more  conclusive  as  to  the 
sincerity  of  Swift's  religion  than  his  advice  to  poor 
John  Gay  to  turn  clergyman,  and  look  out  for  a 
seat  on  the  Bench.  Gay,  the  author  of  the  "  Beg- 
gar's Opera  "—Gay,  the  wildest  of  the  wits  about  15 
town — it  was  this  man  that  Jonathan  Swift  advised 
to  take  orders — to  invest  in  a  cassock  and  bands — 
just  as  he  advised  him  to  husband  his  shillings  and 
put  his  thousand  pounds  out  at  interest.  The 
Queen,  and  the  bishops,  and  the  world,  were  right  20 
in  mistrusting  the  religion  of  that  man.* 

*  From  the  Archbishot'  of  Cashcll. 

"  Cashell:    May  ^isf,   1735. 
"  Dear  Sir, — I  have  been  so  unfortunate  in  all  my  contests  of  late, 
that  I  am  resolved  to  have  no  more,  especially  where  I  am  likely  to  25 
be  overmatched;     and  as   I   have   some  reason  to  hope  what  is   past 
will   be  forgotten,   1   confess   I   did  endeavour  in   my  last  to  put  the 
best   colour    I    could   think   of   upon   a   very   bad   cause.     My   friends 
judge  right  of  my  idleness;    but,  in  reality,  it  has  hitherto  proceeded 
from   a   hurry   and   confusion,   arising   from   a   thousand   unlucky   un- 30 
foreseen  accidents  rather  than   mere  sloth.     I   have  but  one  trouble- 
some  affair  now   upon   rfiy   hands,   which,   by  the   help   of  the   prime 
Serjeant,    I   hope   soon   to   get   rid   of;     and   then   you   shall   see   me   a 
true  Irish  bishop.     Sir  James  Ware  has  made  a  very  useful  collection 
of   the    memorable   actions   of   my   predecessors.      He   tells    me,    they  35 
were  born  in  such  a  town  of  England  or  Ireland;    were  consecrated 


SWIFT  2y 

I  am  not  here,  of  course,  to  speak  of  any  man's 
religious  views,  except  in  so  far  as  they  influence 
his  literary  character,  his  life,  his  humour.  The 
most  notorious  sinners  of  all  those  fellow-mortals 
5  whom  it  is  our  business  to  discuss — Harry  Field- 
ing and  Dick  Steele — were  especially  loud,  and  I 
believe  really  fervent  in  their  expressions  of  belief; 
thev  belaboured  freethinkers,  and  stoned  imaginary 
atheists  on  all  sorts  of  occasions,  going  out  of  their 

I o such  a  year;  and  if  not  translated,  were  buried  in  the  Cathedral 
Church,  either  on  the  north  or  south  side.  Whence  I  conclude  that 
a  good  bishop  has  nothing  more  to  do  than  to  eat,  drink,  grow  fat, 
rich,  and  die;  which  laudable  example  I  propose  for  the  remainder 
of  my  life  to  follow;    for  to  tell  you  the  truth,  I  have  for  these  four 

15  or  five  years  past  met  with  so  much  treachery,  baseness,  and  in- 
gratitude among  mankind,  that  I  can  hardly  think  it  incumbent  on 
any  man  to  endeavour  to  do  good  to  so  perverse  a  generation. 

"  I    am    truly    concerned    at    the    account    you    give    me    of    your 
health.     Without  doubt  a  southern  ramble  will  prove  the  best  remedy 

2oyou  can  take  to  recover  your  flesh;  and  I  do  not  know,  except  in 
one  stage,  where  you  can  choose  a  road  so  suited  to  your  circum- 
stances, as  from  Dublin  hither.  You  have  to  Kilkenny  a  turnpike 
and  good  inns,  at  every  ten  or  twelve  miles'  end.  From  Kilkenny 
hither  is  twenty  long  miles,  bad  road,  and  no  inns  at  all:    but  I  have 

2 5 an  expedient  for  you.  At  the  foot  of  a  very  high  hill,  just  midway, 
there  lives  in  a  neat  thatched  cabin  a  parson,  who  is  not  poor;  his 
wife  is  allowed  to  be  the  best  little  woman  in  the  world.  Her 
chickens  are  the  fattest,  and  her  ale  the  best  in  all  the  country. 
Besides,  the  parson  has  a  little  cellar  of  his  own,  of  which  he  keeps 

jOthe  key,  where  he  always  has  a  hogshead  of  the  best  wine  that  can 
be  got,  in  bottles  well  corked,  upon  their  side;  and  he  cleans,  and 
pulls  out  the  cork  better,  I  think,  than  Robin.  Here  I  design  to 
meet  you  with  a  coach;  if  you  be  tired,  you  shall  stay  all  night; 
if  not,  after  dinner,  we  will  set  out  about  four,  and  be  at  Cashell  by 

35nine;  and  by  going  through  fields  and  bye-ways,  which  the  parson 
will  show  us,  we  shall  escape  all  the  rocky  and  stony  roads  that  lie 
between  this  place  and  that,  which  are  certainly  very  bad.  I  hope 
you  will  be  so  kind  as  to  let  me  know  a  post  or  two  before  you  set 
out,  the  very  day  you  will  be  at  Kilkenny,  that  I  may  have  all  things 

40 prepared  for  you.  It  may  be,  if  you  ask  him.  Cope  will  come:  he 
will  do  nothing  for  me^.  Therefore,  depending  upon  your  positive 
promise,  I  shall  add  no  more  arguments  to  persuade  you,  and  am, 
with  the  greatest  truth,  your  most  faithful  and  obedient  servant, 

"  Theo.  Cashell." 


28  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

way  to  bawl  their  own  creed,  and  persecute  their 
neighbour's,  and  if  they  sinned  and  stumbled,  as 
they  constantly  did  with  debt,  with  drink,  with  all 
sorts  of  bad  behaviour,  they  got  upon  their  knees 
and  cried  "  Peccavi  "  with  a  most  sonorous  ortho-  5 
doxy.  Yes;  poor  Harry  Fielding  and  poor  Dick 
Steele  were  trusty  and  undoubting  Church  of  Eng- 
land men;  they  abhorred  Popery,  Atheism,  and 
wooden  shoes  and  idolatries  in  general ;  and  hic- 
cupped Church  and  State  with  fervour.  10 

But  Swift?  His  mind  had  had  a  different  school- 
ing, and  possessed  a  very  different  logical  power. 
He  was  not  bred  up  in  a  tipsy  guardroom,  and  did 
not  learn  to  reason  in  a  Covent  Garden  tavern.  He 
could  conduct  an  argument  from  beginning  to  end,  15 
He  could  see  forward  with  a  fatal  clearness.  In  his 
old  age,  looking  at  the  "  Tale  of  a  Tub,"  when  he 
said,  "  Good  God,  what  a  genius  I  had  when  I 
wrote  that  book !  "  I  think  he  was  admiring,  not 
the  genius,  but  the  consequences  to  which  the 20 
genius  had  brought  him — a  vast  genius,  a  magni- 
ficent genius,  a  genius  wonderfully  bright,  and  daz- 
zl'ng,  and  strong, — to  seize,  to  know,  to  see,  to 
flash  upon  falsehood  and  scorch  it  into  perdition, 
to  penetrate  into  the  hidden  motives,  and  expose  25 
the  black  thoughts  of  men, — an  awful,  an  evil 
spirit. 

Ah  man!  you,  educated  in  Epicurean  Temple's  li- 
brary, you  whose  friends  were  Pope  and  St.  John — 
what  made  you  to  swear  to  fatal  vows,  and  bind  30 
yourself  to  a  life-long  hypocrisy  before  the  Heaven 
which  you  adored  with  such  real  wonder,  humility. 


SWIFT  .  29 

and  reverence?  For  Swift's  was  a  reverent,  was  a 
pious  spirit — for  Swift  could  love  and  could  pray. 
Through  the  storms  and  tempests  of  his  furious 
mind,  the  stars  of  religion  and  love  break  out  in  the 
sblue,  shining  serenely,  though  hidden  by  the  driv- 
ing clouds  and  the  maddened  hurricane  of  his  life. 

It  is  my  belief  that  he  suffered  frightfully  from 
the  consciousness  of  his  own  scepticism,  and  that  he 
had    bent    his    pride    so    far   down    as    to    put    his 

10 apostasy  out  to  hire.*  The  paper  left  behind  him, 
called  ''  Thoughts  on  Religion,"  is  merely  a  set  of 
excuses  for  not  professing  disbelief.  He  says  of  his 
sermons  that  he  preached  pamphlets:  they  have 
scarce   a   Christian   characteristic;    they   might  be 

15  preached  from  the  steps  of  a  synagogue,  or  the  floor 
of  a  mosque,  or  the  box  of  a  coffee-house  almost. 
There  is  little  or  no  cant — he  is  too  great  and  too 
proud  for  that;  and,  in  so  far  as  the  badness  of  his 
sermons  goes,  he  is  honest.     But  having  put  that 

20 cassock  on,  it  poisoned  him;  he  was  strangled  in 
his  bands.  He  goes  through  life,  tearing,  like  a 
man  possessed  with  a  devil.  Like  Abudah  in  the 
Arabian  story,  he  is  always  looking  out  for  the 
Fury,  and  knows  that  the  night  will  come  and  the 

25  inevitable  hag  with  it.  What  a  night,  my  God,  it 
was!  what  a  lonely  rage  and  long  agony — what  a 
vulture  that  tore  the  heart  of  that  giant!  f     It  is 

*  "  Mr.    Swift   lived    with    him    [Sir    WilHam    Temple]    some    time, 

but  resolving  to   settle  himself  in   some  way  of  living,   was  inclined 

30  to  take  orders.     However,   although   his   fortune  was  very   small,   he 

had   a   scruple   of   entering   into   the    Church    merely   for   support." — 

Anecdotes  of  the  Family  of  Swift,   by  the   Dean. 

t  "  Dr.  Swift  had  a  natural  severity  of  face,  which  even  his  smiles 
could  scarce  soften,  or  his  utmost  gaiety  render  placid  and  serene; 


30  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

awful  to  think  of  the  great  sufferings  of  this  great 
man.  Through  life  he  always  seems  alone,  some- 
how. Goethe  was  so.  I  can't  fancy  Shakspeare 
otherwise.  The  giants  must  live  apart.  The  kings 
can  have  no  company.  But  this  man  suffered  so;  5 
and  deserved  so  to  suffer.  One  hardly  reads  any- 
where of  such  a  pain. 

The  "  saeva  indignatio "  of  which  he  spoke  as 
lacerating  his  heart,  and  which  he  dares  to  inscribe 
on  his  tombstone — as  if  the  wretch  who  lay  under  10 
that  stone  waiting  God's  judgment  had  a  right  to  be 
angry — breaks  out  from  him  in  a  thousand  pages 
of  his  writing,  and  tears  and  rends  him.  Against 
men  in  office,  he  having  been  overthrown;  against 
men  in  England,  he  having  lost  his  chance  of  pre- 15 
ferment  there,  the  furious  exile  never  fails  to  rage 
and  curse.  Is  it  fair  to  call  the  famous  ''  Drapier's 
Letters "  patriotism?  They  are  masterpieces  of 
dreadful  humour  and  invective:  they  are  reasoned 
logically  enough  too,  but  the  proposition  is  as  20 
monstrous  and  fabulous  as  the  Lilliputian  island. 
It  is  not  that  the  grievance  is  so  great,  but  there  is 
his  enemy — the  assault  is  wonderful  for  its  activity 
and  terrible  rage.  It  is  Samson,  with  a  bone  in  his 
hand,  rushing  on  his  enemies  and  felling  them:  one 25 
admires  not  the  cause  so  much  as  the  strength,  the 
anger,  the  fury  of  the  champion.  As  is  the  case 
with  madmen,  certain  subjects  provoke  him,  and 

but  when  that  sternness  of  visage  was  increased  by  rage,  it  is  scarce 
,  possible    to    imagine    looks    or    features    that    carried    in    them    more30 
terror   and    austerity." — Orrery. 


SWIFT  31 

awaken  liis  fits  of  wrath.  Marriage  is  one  of 
these;  in  a  hundred  passages  in  his  writings  he 
rages  against  it;  rages  against  children;  an  object 
of  constant  satire,  even  more  contemptible  in  his 
5  eyes  than  a  lord's  chaplain,  is  a  poor  curate  with  a 
large  family.  The  idea  of  this  luckless  paternity 
never  fails  to  bring  down  from  him  gibes  and  foul 
language.  Could  Dick  Steele,  or  Goldsmith,  or 
Fielding,  in  his  most  reckless   moment  of  satire, 

10  have  written  anything  like  the  Dean's  famous 
"Modest  Proposal"  for  eating  children?  Not  one 
of  these  but  melts  at  the  thoughts  of  childhood, 
fondles  and  caresses  it.  Mr.  Dean  has  no  such 
softness,  and  enters  the  nursery  with  the  tread  and 

15 gaiety  of  an  ogre.*  "I  have  been  assured,"  says 
he  in  the  "  Modest  Proposal,"  "  by  a  very  knowing 
American  of  my  acquaintance  in  London,  that  a 
young  healthy  child,  well  nursed,  is,  at  a  year  old, 
a  most  delicious,  nourishing',  and  wholesome  food, 

20 whether  stewed,  roasted,  baked,  or  boiled;  and  I 
make  no  doubt  it  will  equally  serve  in  a  ragout" 
And  taking  up  this  pretty  joke,  as  his  way  is,  he 
argues  it  with  perfect  gravity  and  logic.  He  turns 
and  twists  this  subject  in  a  score  of  different  ways; 

25  he  hashes  it;  and  he  serves  it  up  cold;  and  he 
garnishes  it;   and  relishes  it  always.     He  describes 

•"London:    April  10th,  1713. 

"Lady  Masham's  eldest  boy  is  very  ill:    I  doubt  he  will  not  live; 

and  she  stays  at  Kensington  to  nurse  him,  which  vexes  us  all.     She 

30  is   so  excessively   fond,   it   makes   me   mad.     She   should  never  leave 

the  Queen,   but  leave  everything,  to  stick  to  what  is   so  much  the 

interest  of  the  public,  as  well  as  her  own.  .  .  ."—Journal. 


32  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

the  little  animal  as  "  dropped  from  its  dam,"  ad- 
vising that  the  mother  should  let  it  suck  plentifully 
in  the  last  month,  so  as  to  render  it  plump  and  fat 
for  a  good  table!  "A  child,"  says  his  Reverence, 
■'  will  make  two  dishes  at  an  entertainment  for  s 
friends;  and  when  the  family  dines  alone,  the  fore 
or  hind  quarter  will  make  a  reasonable  dish,"  and 
so  on;  and  the  subject  being  so  delightful  that  he 
can't  leave  it,  he  proceeds  to  recommend,  in  place 
of  venison  for  squires'  tables,  '*  the  bodies  of  young  lo 
lads  and  maidens  not  exceeding  fourteen  or  under 
twelve."  Amiable  humourist!  laughing  castigator 
of  morals!  There  was  a  process  well  known  and 
practised  in  the  Dean's  gay  days;  when  a  lout  en- 
tered the  coffee-house,  the  wags  proceeded  to  what  15 
they  called  "  roasting  "  him.  This  is  roasting  a 
subject  with  a  vengeance.  The  Dean  had  a  native 
genius  for  it.  As  the  "  Almanach  des  Gourmands  " 
says,  "  On  nait  rotisseur." 

And  it  was  not  merely  by  the  sarcastic  method  20 
that  Swift  exposed  the  unreasonableness  of  loving 
and  having  children.     In  "  Gulliver,"  the  folly  of 
love  and  marriage  is  urged  by  graver  arguments 
and  advice.     In  the  famous  Lilliputian  kingdom, 
Swift  speaks  with  approval  of  the  practice  ot  in- 25 
stantly  removing  children  from  their  parents  and 
educating    them   by   the   State;    and   amongst   his 
favourite  horses,  a  pair  of  foals  are  stated  to  be  the 
very  utmost  a  Avcll-rcgulated  equine  couple  would 
permit  themselves.       In  fact,  our  great  satirist  was  3° 
of  opinion  that  conjugal  love  was  unadvisable,  and 
illustrated  the  theory  by  his  own  practice  and  ex- 


SWIFT  33 

ample — God  help  him! — which  made  him  about  the 
most  wretched  being  in  God's  world.* 

The  grave  and  logical  conduct  of  an  absurd 
proposition,  as  exemplified  in  the  cannibal  pro- 
sposal  just  mentioned,  is  our  author's  constant 
method  through  all  his  works  of  humour.  Given  a 
country  of  people  six  inches  or  sixty  feet  high,  and 
by  the  mere  process  of  the  logic,  a  thousand  won- 
derful absurdities  are  evolved,  at  so  many  stages  of 

lothe  calculation.  Turning  to  the  First  Minister  who 
waited  behind  him  with  a  white  stafif  near  as  tall  as 
the  mainmast  of  the  Royal  Sovereign,  the  King  of 
Brobdingnag  observes  how  contemptible  a  thing 
human  grandeur  is,  as  represented  by  such  a  con- 

istemptible  little  creature  as  Gulliver.  "The  Em- 
peror of  Lijliput's  features  are  strong  and  mascu- 
line "  (what  a  surprising  humour  there  is  in  this 
description!) — "The  Emperor's  features,"  Gulliver 
says,  "  are  strong  and  masculine,  with  an  Austrian 

20 lip,  an  arched  nose,  his  complexion  olive,  his  coun- 
tenance erect,  his  body  and  limbs  well  proportioned, 
and  his  deportment  majestic.  He  is  taller  by  the 
breadth  of  my  nail  than  any  of  his  Court,  which 
alone  is  enough  to  strike  an  awe  into  beholders." 

25  What  a  surprising  humour  there  is  in  these  de- 
scriptions! How  noble  the  satire  is  here!  how  just 
and  honest!  How  perfect  the  image!  Mr.  Macau- 
lay  has  quoted  the  charming  lines  of  the  poet  where 
the  king  of  the  pigmies  is  measvired  by  the  same 

30  standard.    We  have  all  read  in  Milton  of  the  spear 

*  "  My  health  is  somewhat  mended,  but  at  best  I  have  an  ill  head 
and  an  aching  heart." — In  May  1719. 


34  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

that  was  like  "the  mast  of  some  great  ammiral;" 
but  these  images  are  surely  likely  to  come  to  the 
comic  poet  originally.  The  subject  is  before  him. 
He  is  turning  it  in  a  thousand  ways.  He  is  full  of 
it.  The  figure  suggests  itself  naturally  to  him,  and  5 
comes  out  of  his  subject,  as  in  that  wonderful  pas- 
sage, when  Gulliver's  box  having  been  dropped  by 
the  eagle  into  the  sea,  and  Gulliver  having  been  re- 
ceived into  the  ship's  cabin,  he  calls  upon  the  crew 
to  bring  the  box  into  the  cabin,  and  put  it  on  theio 
table,  the  cabin  being  only  a  quarter  the  size  of  the 
box.  It  is  the  veracity  of  the  blunder  which  is  so 
admirable.  Had  a  man  come  from  such  a  country 
as  Brobdingnag,  he  would  have  blundered  so. 

But  the  best  stroke  of  humour,  if  there  be  a  best^S 
in  that  abounding  book,  is  that  where  Gulliver,  in 
the  unpronounceable  country,  describes  his  parting 
from  his  master  the  horse.* 

*  Perhaps  the  most  melancholy  satire  in  the  whole  of  the  dreadful 
book  is  the  description  of  the  very  old  people  in  the  "  Voyage  to  20 
Laputa."  At  Lugnag,  Gulliver  hears  of  some  persons  who  never  die, 
called  the  Struldbrugs,  and  expressing  a  wish  to  become  acquainted 
with  men  who  must  have  so  much  learning  and  experience,  his 
colloquist   describes   the   Struldbrugs   to   him. 

"He   said:     They   commonly   acted   like   mortals,    till    about   thirty  25 
years   old,   after   which,    by   degrees,    they   grew    melancholy   and   de- 
jected,   increasing    in    both    till    they    came    to    fourscore.      This    he 
learned   from   their   own    confession:     for   otherwise   there   not   being 
above  two  or  three  of  that  species  born  in  an  age,  they  were  too  few 
to  form   a   general   observation   by.     When   they  came  to   fourscore  3^ 
years,    which    is   reckoned    the    extremity    of   living    in    this    country, 
they  had  not  only  all  the  follies  and  infirmities  of  other  old  men,  but 
many  more,  which  arose  from  the  dreadful  prospect  of  never  dying. 
They   were   not   only   opinionative,    peevish,   covetous,    morose,   vain, 
talkative,  but  incapable  of  friendship,   and  dead  to  all  natural   affec-  35 
tion,   which   never   descended   below  their  grandchildren.     Envy   and 
impotent    desires    are    their    prevailing    passions.      But    those    objects 
against    which    their   envy    seems    principally   directed,    are   the   vices 
of  the  younger  sort  and  the  deaths  of  the  old.     By  reflecting  on  the 


SWIFT  35 

"  I  took,"  he  says,  "  a  second  leave  of  my  mas- 
ter, but  as  I  was  going  to  prostrate  myself  to  kiss 
his  hoof,  he  did  me  the  honour  to  raise  it  gently  to 
my  mouth.  I  am  not  ignorant  how  much  I  have 
5  been  censured  for  mentioning  this  last  particular. 
Detractors  are  pleased  to  think  it  improbable  that 
so  illustrious  a  person  should  descend  to  give  so 
great  a  mark  of  distinction  to  a  creature  so  inferior 
as  I.  Neither  have  I  forgotten  how  apt  some  trav- 
locllers  are  to  boast  oj  extraordinary  favours   they 

former,  they  find  themselves  cut  off  from  all  possibility  of  pleasure; 
and  whenever  they  see  a  funeral,  they  lament,  and  repine  that  others 
ire  gone  to  a  harbour  of  rest,  to  which  they  themselves  never  can 
hope  to  arrive.     They  have  no  remembrance  of  anything   but   what 

15  they  learned  and  observed  in  their  youth  and  middle  age,  and  even 
that  is  very  imperfect.  And  for  the  truth  or  particulars  of  any  fact, 
it  is  safer  to  depend  on  common  tradition  than  upon  their  best 
recollections.  The  least  miserable  among  them  appear  to  be  those 
who   turn   to   dotage,   and   entirely   lose  their   memories;     these   meet 

20  with  more  pity  and  assistance,  because  they  want  many  bad  qualities 
which   abound   in   others. 

"If  a  Struldbrug  happen  to  marry  one  of  his  own  kind,  the  mar- 
riage is  dissolved  of  course,  by  the  courtesy  of  the  kingdom,  as 
soon  as  the  younger  of  the  two  comes  to  be  fourscore.     For  the  law 

25  thinks  it  a  reasonable  indulgence  that  those  who  are  condemned, 
without  any  fault  of  their  own,  to  a  perpetual  continuance  in  the 
world,  should  not  have  their  misery  doubled  by  the  load  of  a  wife. 

"  As  soon  as  they  have  completed  the  term  of  eighty  years,  they 
are   looked   on   as   dead   in   law;     their   heirs   immediately   succeed   to 

30  their  estates,  only  a  small  pittance  is  reserved  for  their  support;  and 
the  poor  ones  are  maintained  at  the  public  charge.  After  that 
period  they  are  held  incapable  of  any  employment  of  trust  or  profit, 
they  cannot  purchase  lands  or  take  leases,  neither  are  they  allowed 
to  be  witnesses  in   any  cause,   either  civil  or  criminal,  not  even  for 

35  the  decision   of  meers  and  bounds. 

"  At  ninety  they  lose  their  teeth  and  hair;  they  have  at  that  age 
no  distinction  of  taste,  but  eat  and  drink  whatever  they  can  get 
without  relish  or  appetite.  The  diseases  they  were  subject  to  still 
continue,   without   increasing   or   diminishing.     In   talking,   they   for- 

40  get  the  common  appellation  of  things,  and  the  names  of  persons, 
even  of  those  who  are  their  nearest  friends  and  relations.  For  the 
same  reason,  they  can  never  amuse  themselves  with  reading,  be- 
cause  their   memory   will   not   serve   to   carry   them   from   the   begin- 


36 


ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 


have  received.  But  if  these  censurers  were  better 
acquainted  with  the  noble  and  courteous  disposition 
of  the  Houyhnhnms  they  would  soon  change  their 
opinion." 

The  surprise  here,  the  audacity  of  circumstantial  5 
evidence,  the  astounding  gravity  of  the  speaker,  who 
is  not  ignorant  how  much  he  has  been  censured,  the 
nature  of  the  favour  conferred,  and  the  respectful 
exultation  at  the  receipt  of  it,  are  surely  complete: 
it  is  truth  topsy-turvy,  entirely  logical  and  absurd.     lo 

As  for  the  humour  and  conduct  of  this  famous 

ning  of  a  sentence  to  the  end;  and  by  this  defect  they  are  deprived 
of  the  only  entertainment  whereof  they  might  otherwise  be  capable. 

"  The  language  of  this  country  being  always  upon  the  flux,  the 
Struldbrugs  of  one  age  do  not  understand  those  of  another;  neither  15 
are  they  able,  after  two  hundred  years,  to  hold  any  conversation 
(further  than  by  a  few  general  words)  with  their  neighbours,  the 
mortals;  and  thus  they  lie  under  the  disadvantage  of  living  like 
foreigners  in   their  own   country. 

"  This  was  the  account  given  me  of  the  Struldbrugs,  as  near  as  I  20 
can  remember.  I  afterwards  saw  five  or  six  of  different  ages,  the 
youngest  not  above  two  hundred  years  old,  who  were  brought  to 
me  at  several  times  by  some  of  my  friends;  but  although  they  were 
told  '  that  I  was  a  great  traveller,  and  had  seen  all  the  world,'  they 
had  not  the  least  curiosity  to  ask  me  a  question;  only  desired  1 25 
would  give  them  slumskudask,  or  a  token  of  remembrance;  which 
is  a  modest  way  of  begging,  to  avoid  the  law,  that  strictly  forbids  it, 
because  they  are  provided  for  by  the  public,  although  indeed  with  a 
very   scanty   allowance. 

"They  are  despised  and  hated  by  all  sorts  of  people;  when  one  30 
of  them  is  born,  it  is  reckoned  ominous,  and  their  birth  is  recorded 
very  particularly;  so  that  you  may  know  their  age  by  consulting 
the  register,  which,  however,  has  not  been  kept  above  a  thousand 
years  past,  or  at  least  has  been  destroyed  by  time  or  public  dis- 
turbances. But  the  usual  w-ay  of  computing  how  old  they  are,  is  by  33 
asking  them  what  kings  or  great  persons  they  can  remember,  and 
then  consulting  history;  for  infallibly  the  last  prince  in  their  mind 
did  not  begin  his  reign  after  they  were  fourscore  years  old. 

"  They  were  the  most  mortifying  sight  I  ever  beheld,  and  the 
women  more  horrible  than  the  men;  besides  the  usual  deformities -JO 
in  extreme  old  age,  they  acquired  an  additional  ghastliness,  in  pro- 
portion to  their  number  of  years,  which  is  not  to  be  described; 
and  among  half-a-dozcn,  I  soon  distinguished  which  w.is  the  eldest, 
although  there  was  not  above  a  century  or  two  between  them." — 
Gulliver's  Travels.  45 


SWIFT  37 

fable,  I  suppose  there  is  no  person  who  reads  but 
must  admire;   as  for  the  moral,  I  think  it  horrible, 
shameful,  unmanly,  blasphemous;    and  giani  and 
great  as  this  Dean  is,  I  say  we  should  hoot  him. 
5  Some  of  this  audience  mayn't  have  read  the  last 
part  of  Gulliver,  and  to  such  I  would  recall  the  ad- 
vice of  the  venerable  Mr.  Punch  to  persons  about 
to  marry,  and  say  "  Don't."     When  Gulliver  first 
lands    among    the    Yahoos,    the    naked    howling 
lo  wretches  clamber  up  trees  and  assault  him,  and  he 
describes  himself  as  "  almost  stifled  with  the  filth 
which  fell  about  him."     The  reader  of  the  fourth 
part  of  "  Gulliver's  Travels  "  is  like  the  hero  him- 
self in  this  instance.    It  is  Yahoo  language:   a  mon- 
15  ster  gibbering  shrieks,  and  gnashing  imprecations 
against    mankind — tearing    down    all     shreds     of 
modesty,  past  all  sense  of  manliness  and  shame; 
filthy  in  word,  filthy  in  thouglit,  furious,  raging, 
obscene. 
20     And  dreadful  it  is  to  think  that  Swift  knew  the 
tendency    of   his    creed — the    fatal    rocks    towards 
which  his  logic  desperately  drifted.     That  last  part 
oS  "  Gulliver  "  is  only  a  consequence  of  what  has 
gone   before;    and   the  worthlessness   of   all   man- 
25  kind,  the  pettiness,   cruelty,   pride,   imbecility,   the 
general  vanity,  the  foolish    pretension,    the    mock 
greatness,   the  pompous   dulness,  the  mean  aims, 
the  base  successes — all  these  were  present  to  him; 
it  was  with  the  din  of  these  curses  of  the  world, 
3oblasphemies  against  Heaven,  shrieking  in  his  ears, 
that  he  began  to,,  write  his   dreadful  allegory — of 
which  the  meaning  is  that  man  is  utterly  wicked, 

450597 


38  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

desperate,  and  imbecile,  and  his  passions  are  so 
monstrous,  and  his  boasted  powers  so  mean,  that  he 
is  and  deserves  to  be  the  slave  of  brutes,  and  igno- 
rance is  better  than  his  vaunted  reason.  What  had 
this  man  done?  what  secret  remorse  was  rankling  5 
at  his  heart?  what  fever  was  boiling  in  him,  that  he 
should  see  all  the  w^orld  bloodshot?  We  view  the 
world  with  our  own  eyes,  each  of  us;  and  we  make 
from  within  us  the  world  we  see.  A  weary  heart 
gets  no  gladness  out  of  sunshine;  a  selfish  man  is  10 
sceptical  about  friendship,  as  a  man  with  no  ear 
doesn't  care  for  music.  A  frightful  self-conscious- 
ness it  must  have  been,  which  looked  on  mankind 
so  darkly  through  those  keen  eyes  of  Swift. 

A  remarkable  story  is  told  by  Scott,  of  Delany,  15 
w'ho  interrupted  Archbishop  King  and  Swift  in  a 
conversation  which  left  the  prelate  in  tears,  and 
from  which  Swift  rushed  away  with  marks  of  strong 
terror  and  agitation  in  his  countenance,  upon  which 
the  Archbishop  said  to  Delany,  "  You  have  just  20 
met  the  most  unhappy  man  on  earth;  but  on  the 
subject  of  his  wretchedness  you  must  never  ask  a 
question."  * 

The  most  unhappy  man  on  earth; — Miscrrimus — 
what  a  character  of  him !  And  at  this  time  all  the  25 
great  wits  of  England  had  been  at  his  feet.  All 
Ireland  had  shouted  after  him,  and  worshipped  him 
as  a  liberator,  a  saviour,  the  greatest  Irish  patriot 
and  citizen.     Dean  Drapier  Bickerstafif  Gulliver — 

*  This  remarkable  story  came  to  Scott  from  an  unnamed  fciend  of  3^ 
Delany's   widow.     It    has   been    supposed    to   confirm    the   conjecture 
about   his   natural   relationship   to    Stella;     but,   even   if   correctly   re- 
ported, is  open  to  any  number  of  interpretations. 


SWIFT  39 

the  most  famous  statesmen  and  the  greatest  poets  of 
his  day  had  applauded  him  and  done  him  homage; 
and  at  this  time,  writing  over  to  BoHngbr.oke  from 
Ireland,  he  says,  "It  is  time  forme  to  have  done  with 
5  the  world,  and  so  I  would  if  I  could  get  into  a  bet- 
ter before  I  was  called  into  the  best,  and  not  die 
here  in  a  rage,  like  a  poisoned  rat  in  a  hole.'" 

We  have  spoken  about  the  men,  and  Swift's  be- 
haviour to  them ;  and  now  it  behoves  us  not  to  for- 

loget  that  there  are  certain  other  persons  in  the  crea- 
tion who  had  rather  intimate  relations  with  the 
great  Dean.*  Two  women  whom  he  loved  and  in- 
jured are  known  by  every  reader  of  books  so 
familiarly  that  if  we  had  seen  them,  or  if  they  had 

15  been  relatives  of  our  own,  we  scarcely  could  have 
known  them  better.  Who  hasn't  in  his  mind  an 
image  of  Stella?  Who  does  not  love  her?  Fair 
and  tender  creature:    pure  and  affectionate  heart! 

*  The   name   of  Varina   has   been   thrown   into   the   shade  by   those 

2oof  the  famous  Stella  and  Vanessa;  but  she  had  a  story  of  her  own 
to  tell  about  the  blue  eyes  of  young  Jonathan.  One  may  say  that 
the  book  of  Swift's  Life  opens  at  places  kept  by  these  blighted 
flowers  !     Varina  must  have  a  paragraph. 

She  was  a  Miss  Jane  Waryng,  sister  to  a  college  chum  of  his.     In 

25  i6g6,  when  Swift  was  nineteen  years  old,  we  find  him  writing  a  love- 
letter  to  her,  beginning,  "  Impatience  is  the  most  inseparable  quality 
of  a  lover."  But  absence  made  a  great  difference  in  his  feelings; 
so,  four  years  afterwards,  the  tone  is  changed.  He  writes  again,  a 
very  curious  letter,   oflfering  to   marry  her,  and  putting  the  offer   in 

30  such   a  way  that  nobody  could   possibly  accept  it. 

After  dwelling  on  his  poverty,  <&c.,  he  says,  conditionally,  "  I 
shall  be  blessed  to  have  you  in  my  arms,  without  regarding  whether 
your  person  be  beautiful,  or  your  fortune  large.  Cleanliness  in  the 
first,  and  competency  in  the  second,  is  all  I  ask  for  ! 

35  The  editors  do  not  tell  us  what  became  of  Varina  in  life.  One 
would  be  glad  to  know  that  she  met  with  some  worthy  partner,  and 
lived  long  enough  to  see  her  little  boys  laughing  over  Lilliput, 
■without  any  arrure  pensee  of  a  gad  character  about  the  great 
Dean  ! 


40  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

Boots  it  to  you,  now  that  you  have  been  at  rest  for 
a  hundred  and  twenty  years,  not  divided  in  death 
from  the  cold  heart  which  cavised  yours,  whilst 
it  beat,  such  faithful  pangs  of  love  and  grief 
— boots  it  to  you  now,  that  the  whole  world  loves  5 
and  deplores  you?  Scarce  any  man,  I  believe,  ever 
thought  of  that  grave,  that  did  not  cast  a  flower  of 
pity  on  it,  and  write  over  it  a  sweet  epitaph.  Gentle 
lady,  so  lovely,  so  loving,  so  unhappy!  you  have 
had  countless  champions ;  millions  of  manly  hearts  10 
mourning  for  you.  From  generation  to  generation 
we  take  up  the  fond  tradition  of  your  beauty,  we 
watch  and  follow  your  tragedy,  your  bright  morn- 
ing love  and  purity,  your  constancy,  your  grief, 
your  sweet  martyrdom.  We  know  your  legend  by  15 
heart.  You  are  one  of  the  saints  of  English  story. 
And  if  Stella's  love  and  innocence  are  charming 
to  contemplate,  I  will  say  that,  in  spite  of  ill-usage, 
in  spite  of  drawbacks,  in  spite  of  mysterious  sep- 
aration and  union,  of  hope  delayed  and  sickened  20 
heart — in  the  teeth  of  Vanessa,  and  that  little 
episodical  aberration  which  plunged  Swift  into  such 
woeful  pitfalls  and  quagmires  of  amorous  per- 
plexity— in  spite  of  the  verdicts  of  most  women,  I 
believe,  who,  as  far  as  my  experience  and  conversa-  25 
tion  go,  generally  take  Vanessa's  part  in  the  con- 
troversy— in  spite  of  the  tears  which  Swift  caused 
Stella  to  shed,  and  the  rocks  and  barriers  which 
fate  and  temper  interposed,  and  which  prevented 
the  pure  course  of  that  true  love  from  running  3° 
smoothly — the  brightest  part  of  Swift^s  story,  the 
pure   star   in   that   dark   and    tempestuous   life   of 


SWIFT  41 

Swift's,  is  his  love  for  Hester  Johnson,  It  has  been 
my  business,  professionally  of  course,  to  go  through 
a  deal  of  sentimental  reading  in  my  time,  and  to  ac- 
quaint myself  with  love-making,  as  it  has  been  de- 
5  scribed  in  various  languages,  and  at  various  ages  of 
the  world;  and  I  know  of  nothing  more  manly, 
more  tender,  more  exquisitely  touching,  than  some 
of  these  brief  notes,  written  in  what  Swift  calls  "  his 
little  language  "  in  his  journal  to  Stella.*   He  writes 

10  to  her  night  and  morning  often.  He  never  sends 
away  a  letter  to  her  but  he  begins  a  new  one  on  the 
same  day.  He  can't  bear  to  let  go  her  kind  little 
hand,  as  it  were.  He  knows  that  she  is  thinking  of 
him,  and  longing  for  him  far  away  in  Dublin  yon- 

15  der.  He  takes  her  letters  from  under  his  pillow  and 
talks  to  them,  familiarly,  paternally,  wath  fond 
epithets  and  pretty  caresses — as  he  would  to  the 
sweet  and  artless  creature  who  loved  him.  "  Stay," 
he  writes  one  morning — it  is  the  14th  of  December 

20  1710— "  Stay,  I  will  answer  some  of  your  letter  this 
morning  in  bed.  Let  me  see.  Come  and  appear, 
little  letter!  Here  I  am,  says  he,  and  what  say  you 
to  Stella  this  morning  fresh  and  fasting?    And  can 

*  A  sentimental  Champollion  might  find  a  good  deal  of  matter  for 
25  his    art,    in    expounding    the    symbols    of    the    "Little    Language." 

Usually,    Stella    is    "  M.D.,"    but    sometimes    her    companion,    Mrs. 

Dingley,  is  included  in  it.     Swift  is  "Presto";    also   P.D.F.R.     We 

have   "Good-night,   M.D.;     Night,    M.D.;     Little   M.D.;     Stellakins; 

Pretty  Stella;  Dear,  roguish,  impudent,  pretty  M.D."  Every  now 
30  and  then  he  breaks  into  rhyme,  as — 

I  wish  you  both  a  merry  new  year. 
Roast-beef,  mince-pies,  and  good  strong  beer, 
And  me  a  share  of  your  good  cheer, 
That  I  was  there,  as  you  were  here, 
35  And  you  are  a  little  saucy  dear." 


42,  ENGLISH  HUMOWRISTS 

Stella  read  this  writing  without  hurting  her  dear 
eyes?"  he  goes  on,  after  more  kind  prattle  and 
fond  whispering.  The  dear  eyes  shine  clearly  upon 
him  then — the  good  angel  of  his  life  is  with  him 
and  blessing  him.  Ah,  it  was  a  hard  fate  that  wrung  5 
from  them  so  many  tears,  and  stabbed  pitilessly 
that  pure  and  tender  bosom.  A  hard  fate:  but 
would  she  have  changed  it?  I  have  heard  a  woman 
say  that  she  would  have  taken  Swift's  cruelty  to 
have  had  his  tenderness.  He  had  a  sort  of  worship  lo 
for  her  whilst  he  wounded  her.  He  speaks  of  her 
after  she  is  gone ;  of  her  wit,  of  her  kindness,  of  her 
grace,  of  her  beauty,  with  a  simple  love  and  rever- 
ence that  are  indescribably  touching;  in  contem- 
plation of  her  goodness  his  hard  heart  melts  into  ^  5 
pathos;  his  cold  rhyme  kindles  and  glows  into 
poetry,  and  he  falls  down  on  his  knees,  so  to  speak, 
before  the  angel  whose  life  he  had  embittered,  con- 
fesses his  own  wretchedness  and  unworthiness,  and 
adores  her  with  cries  of  remorse  and  love : —  20 

"  When  on  my  sickly  couch  I  lay, 
Impatient  both  of  night  and  day. 
And  groaning  in   unmanly   strains, 
Called  every  power  to  ease  my  pains, 
Then  Stella  ran  to  my  relief,        '  25 

With  cheerful  face  and  inward  grief, 
And  though  by  Heaven's  severe  decree 
She  suffers  hourly  more  than  me, 
No  cruel  master  could  require 
From  slaves  employed  for  daily  hire,  3° 

What  Stella,  by  her  friendship  warmed, 
With  vigour  and  delight  performed. 
Now,  with  a  soft  and  silent  tread. 
Unheard  she  moves  about  my  bed: 
My  sinking  spirits  now  supplies  35 

With  cordials  in  her  hands  and  eyes. 


SWIFT  43 

Best  pattern  of  true  friends  !    beware 
You  pay  too  dearly  for  your  care 
If,  while  your  tenderness  secures 
My  life,  it  must  endanger  yours: 
5  For  such  a  fool  was  never  found 

Who  pulled  a  palace  to  the  ground, 
Only  to  have  the  ruins  made 
Materials  for  a  house  decayed." 

One  little  triumph  Stella  had  in  her  life — one 
ID  dear  little  piece  of  injustice  was  performed  in  her 
favour,  for  which  I  confess,  for  my  part,  I  can't  help 
thanking  fate  and  the  Dean.  That  other  person  was 
sacrificed  to  her — that — that  young  woman,  who 
lived  five  doors  from  Doctor  Swift's  lodgings  in 
15  Bury  Street,  and  who  flattered  him,  and  made  love 
to  him  in  such  an  outrageous  manner — Vanessa 
was  thrown  over. 

Swift  did  not  keep  Stella's  letters  to  him  in  reply 
to  those  he  wrote -to  her.*    He  kept  Bolingbroke's, 

20     *  The  following  passages  are  from  a  paper  begun  by  Swift  on  the 

evening  of  the  day  of  her  death,  Jan.  28,  1727-28: — 

"  She  was  sickly  from  her  childhood,  until  about  the  age  of  fifteen; 

but    then    she    grew    into    perfect    health,    and    was    looked    upon    as 

one  of  the  most  beautiful,  graceful,   and  agreeable  young  women  in 
25  London — only  a  little  too  fat.     Her  hair  was  blacker  than  a  raven, 

and  every  feature  of  her  face  in  perfection. 
"...  Properly    speaking  " — he    goes    on,    with    a    calmness   which, 

under    the    circumstances,     is    terrible — "  she    has    been    dying    six 

months  !  .  .  . 
■^O     "Never  was   any.  of  her   sex   born   with   better   gifts   of  the  mind, 

or  who   more  improved  them  by  reading  and   conversation.  .  .  .  All 

of  us  who  had  the  happiness  of  her  friendship  agreed  unanimously, 

that    in    an    afternoon's    or   evening's    conversation    she    never   failed 

before  we  parted  of  delivering  the  best  thing  that  was   said  in  the 
35  company.     Some  of  us  have  written   down   several  of  her  sayings, 

or   what   the    French    call    bons  mots,   wherein    she   excelled    beyond 

belief." 
The   specimens   on   record,   however,   in   the   Dean's   paper,   called 

"  Bon    Mots    de    Stella,"    scarcely    bear    out    this    last    part    of    the 
40  panegyric.     But  the  following  prove  her  wit: — 

"  A  gentleman  who  had  been  very  silly  and  pert  in  her  company, 


44  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

and  Pope's,  and  Harley's,  and  Peterborough's:  but 
Stella  "  very  carefully,"  the  Lives  say,  kept  Swift's. 
Of  course:  that  is  the  way  of  the  world:  and  so 
we  cannot  tell  what  her  style  was,  or  of  what  sort 
were  the  little  letters  which  the  Doctor  placed  there  5 
at  night,  and  bade  to  appear  from  under  his  pillow 
of  a  morning.  But  in  Letter  IV.  of  that  famous 
collection  he  describes  his  lodging  in  Bury  Street, 
where  he  has  the  first-floor,  a  dining-room  and 
bed-chamber,  at  eight  shillings  a  week;  and  in  Let- 10 
ter  VL  he  says  "  he  has  visited  a  lady  just  come  to 
town,"  \vhose  name  somehow  is  not  mentioned; 
and  in  Letter  VIIL  he  enters  a  query  of  Stella's — 
"  What  do  you  mean  '  that  boards  near  me,  that  1 
dine  with  now  and  then  '?  What  the  deuce!  You  15 
know  whom  I  have  dined  with  every  day  since  I  left 
you,  better  than  I  do."  Of  course  she  does.  Of 
course  Swift  has  not  the  slightest  idea  of  what  she 
means.    But  in  a  few  letters  more  it  turns  out  that 

at   last   began   to   grieve   at   remembering   the   loss   of   a   child   lately  20 
dead.     A  bishop  sitting  by  comforted  him— that  he  should  be  easy, 
because  '  the  child  was  gone  to  heaven.'     '  No,  my  Lord,'  said  she; 
'  that  is  it  which  most  grieves  him,  because  he  is  sure  never  to  see 
his  child  there.' 

"When    she  was   extremely   ill,   her   physician   said,   'Madam,   you 25 
are  near  the  bottom   of  the   hill,   but  we  will   endeavour  to  get  you 
up  again.'     She  answered,  '  Doctor,  I  fear  I  shall  be  out  of  breath 
before  I  get  up  to  the  top.' 

"  A  very  dirty  clergyman  of  her  acquaintance,  who  affected  smart- 
ness  and    repartees,    was    asked    by    some   of   the   company    how   his30 
nails   came   to   be   so   dirty.     He  was  at   a  loss;     but   she   solved  the 
difficulty   by   saying,   '  The   Doctor's   nails   grew   dirty   by   scratching 
himself.' 

"A   Quaker   apothecary   sent   her   a   vial,   corked;     it   had   a   broad 
brim,   and   a  label   of  paper  about  its  neck.     '  What   is   that  ?  ' — said  35 
she — '  my  apothecary's  son  !  '     The  ridiculous  resemblance,   and  the 
suddenness  of  the  question,  set  us  all  a-Iaughing." — Swift's  Works, 
Scott's  ed.  vol.  ix.  295-96. 


SWIFT  45 

the  Doctor  has  been  to  dine  "  gravely  "  with  a  Mrs. 
Vanhomrigh:  then  that  he  has  been  to  "  his  neigh- 
bour "  :  then  that  he  has  been  unwell,  and  means  to 
dine  for  the  whole  week  with  his  neighbour!   Stella 

5  was  quite  right  in  her  previsions.  She  saw  from  the 
very  first  hint  what  was  going  to  happen;  and 
scented  Vanessa  in  the  air.*  The  rival  is  at  the 
Dean's  feet.  The  pupil  and  teacher  are  reading  to- 
gether, and   drinking  tea  together,  and  going  to 

10  prayers  together,  and  learning  Latin  together,  and 
conjugating  amo,  amas,  amavi  together.  The  "  lit- 
tle language  "  is  over  for  poor  Stella.  By  the  rule 
of  grammar  and  the  course  of  conjugation,  doesn't 
amavi  come  after  amo  and  amas? 

15  The  loves  of  Cadenus  and  Vanessa  f  you  may 
peruse  in  Cadenus's  own  poem  on  the  subject,  and 
in  poor  Vanessa's  vehement  expostulatory  verses 
and  letters  to  him;  she  adores  him,  implores  him, 
admires  him,  thinks  him  something  god-like,  and 

20  only  prays  to  be  admitted  to  lie  at  his  feet.J  As  they 

*  "  I  am  so  hot  and  lazy  after  my  morning's  walk,  that  I  loitered 
at  Mrs.  Vanliomrigh's,  where  my  best  gown  and  periwig  was,  and 
out  of  mere  listlessness  dine  there  very  often;  so  I  did  to-day." — 
Journal  to  Stella. 

25  Mrs.  Vanhomrigh,  "  Vanessa's  "  mother,  was  the  widow  of  a 
Dutch  merchant  who  held  lucrative  appointments  in  King  William's 
time.  The  family  settled  in  London  in  1709,  and  had  a  house  in 
Bury  Street,  St.  James's— a  street  made  notable  by  such  residents 
as  Swift  and  Steele;    and,  in  our  own  time,  Moore  and  Crabbe. 

30  t  "  Vanessa  was  excessively  vain.  The  character  given  of  her 
by  Cadenus  is  fine  painting,  but  in  general  fictitious.  She  was.  fond 
of  dress;  impatient  to  be  admired;  very  romantic  in  her  turn  of 
mind;  superior,  in  her  own  opinion,  to  all  her  sex;  full  of  pertness, 
gaiety,    and    pride;     not    without    some    agreeable    accomplishments, 

35  but    far    from    being    either    beautiful    or    genteel;  .  .  .  happy    in    the 
thoughts  of  being  reported   Swift's   concubine,   but   still   aiming  and 
intending  to  be  his  wife."— Lord  Orrery, 
t  "  You  bid   me  be  easy,   and  you  would   see   me   as   often  as  you 


46  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

are  bringing  him  home  from  church,  those  divine 
feet  of  Doctor  Swift's  are  found  pretty  often  in 
Vanessa's  parlour.  He  hkes  to  be  admired  and 
adored.  He  finds  Miss  Vanhomrigh  to  be  a  woman 
of  great  taste  and  spirit,  and  beauty  and  wit,  and  a  5 
fortune  too.  He  sees  her  every  day;  he  does  not 
tell  Stella  about  the  business;  until  the  impetuous 
Vanessa  becomes  too  fond  of  him,  until  the  Doctor 
is  quite  frightened  by  the  young  woman's  ardour, 
and  confounded  by  her  warmth.  He  w'anted  to  10 
marry  neither  of  them — that  I  believe  was  the  truth; 
but  if  he  had  not  married  Stella,  A'anessa  would 
have  had  him  in  spite  of  himself.  When  he  went 
back  to  Ireland,  his  Ariadne,  not  content  to  remain 
in  her  isle,  pursued  the  fugitive  Dean.  In  vain  he  15 
protested,  he  vowed,  he  soothed,  and  bullied;  the 
news    of   the    Dean's  marriage  with  Stella  at  last 


could.    You  had  better  have  said,  as  often  as  you  can  get  the  better 
of  your  incHnations   so   much;     or  as   often  as  you   remember  there 
was  such   a  one  in   the  world.     If  you  continue  to   treat   me  as  you  20 
do,   you   will   not  be  made  uneasy  by   me  long.     It  is   impossible  to 
describe   what   I    have   suffered   since   I    saw   you   last:     I    am   sure   I 
could  have  borne  the  rack  much  better  than  those  killing  words  of 
yours.        Sometimes    I    have    resolved    to    die    without    seeing    you 
more;    but  those  resolves,  to  your  misfortune,  did  not  last  long;    for 25 
there   is   something   in   human   nature   that   prompts   one    so   to    find 
relief  in  this  world   I  must   give  way  to   it,   and  beg  you   would  see 
me,  and  speak  kindly  to  me;    for  I  am  sure  you'd  not  condemn  any 
one  to  suffer  what  I  have  done,  could  you  but  know  it.     The  reason 
I  write  to  you  is,  because  I  cannot  tell  it  to  you  should  I   see  you;  30 
for   when    I    begin   to    complain,   then    you    are   angry,    and   there   is 
something   in    your   looks   so   awful   that   it   strikes   me   dumb.     Oh  I 
that  you   may  have   but   so   much   regard   for  me  left   that   this  com- 
plaint may  touch  your  soul  with  pity.     I  say  as  little  as  ever  I  can; 
did  you  but  know  what   I  thought,   I  am  sure  it  would  move  you  to  35 
forgive  me;    and  believe  I  cannot  help  telling  you  this  and  live." — 
Vanessa.     (M.  1714.) 


SWIFT  47 

came  to  her,  and   it   killed   her — she  died   of  that 
passion.* 

*  "  If   we   consider    Swift's   behaviour,   so   far   only   as   it   relates   to 
women,  we  shall  find  that  he  looked  upon  them  rather  as  busts  than 
5  as  whole   figures." — Orrery. 

"  You  would  have  smiled  to  have  found  his  house  a  constant 
seraglio  of  very  virtuous  women,  who  attended  him  from  morning 
till  night." — Orrery. 

A    correspondent    of    Sir    Walter    Scott's    furnished    him    with    the 

lO  materials  on  which  to  found  the  following  interesting  passage  about 
Vanessa — after  she  had  retired  to  cherish  her  passion  in  retreat: — 

"  Marley  Abbey,  near  Celbridge,  where  Miss  Vanhomrigh  resided, 
is  built  much  in  the  form  of  a  real  cloister,  especially  in  its  external 
appearance.     An  aged  man   (upwards  of  ninety,  by  his  own  account) 

15  showed  the  grounds  to  my  correspondent.  He  was  the  son  of  Mrs. 
Vanhomrigh's  gardener,  and  used  to  work  with  his  father  in  the 
garden  when  a  boy.  He  remembered  the  unfortunate  Vanessa  well; 
and  his  account  of  her  corresponded  with  the  usual  description  of 
her  person,   especially  as   to  her  embonpoint.     He   said   she  went   sel- 

20  dom  abroad,  and  saw  little  company:  her  constant  amusement  was 
reading,  or  walking  in  the  garden.  .  .  .  She  avoided  company,  and 
was  always  melancholy,  save  when  Dean  Swift  was  there,  and  then 
she  seemed  happy.  The  garden  was  to  an  uncommon  degree 
crowded    with    laurels.      The    old    man    said    that    when    Miss    Van- 

25  homrigh  expected  the  Dean  she  always  planted  with  her  own  hand 
a  laurel  or  two  against  his  arrival.  He  showed  her  favourite  seat, 
still  called  '  Vanessa's  bower.'  'Three  or  four  trees  and  some  laurels 
indicate  the  spot.  .  .  .  There  were  two  seats  and  a  rude  table  within 
the  bower,   the  opening  of  which  commanded  a  view  of  the   Liffey. 

30.  .  .  In  this  sequestered  spot,  according  to  the  old  gardener's  ac- 
count, the  Dean  and  Vanessa  used  often  to  sit,  with  books  and 
writing-materials  on  the  table  before  them." — Scott's  Swift,  vol.  i. 
pp.  246-7. 

"...  But    Miss   Vanhomrigh,    irritated   at   the   situation    in   which 

35  she  found  herself,  determined  on  bringing  to  a  crisis  those  expecta- 
tions of  a  union  with  the  object  of  her  affections— to  the  hope  of 
which  she  had  clung  amid  every  vicissitude  of  his  conduct  towards 
her.  The  m.ost  probable  bar  was  his  undefined  connection  with 
•Mrs.  Johnson,  which,  as  it  must  have  been  perfectly  known  to  her, 

4c  had,  doubtless,  long  excited  her  secret,  jealousy,  although  only  a 
single  hint  to  that  purpose  is  to  be  found  in  their  correspondence, 
and  that  so  early  as  1713,  when  she  writes  to  him— then  in  Ireland— 
'  If  you  are  very  happy,  it  is  ill-natured  of  you  not  to  tell  me  so, 
except  'tis  what  is  inconsistent  with  mine.'     Her  silence  and  patience 

45  under  this  state  of  uncertainty  for  no  less  than  eight  years,  must 
have  been  partly  owing  to  her  awe  for  Swift,  and  partly,  perhaps, 
to  the  weak  state  of  her  rival's  health,  which,  from  year  to  year, 
seemed'   to    announce    speedy    dissolution.       At    length,     however, 


48  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

And  when  she  died,  and  Stella  heard  that  Swift 
had  written  beautifully  regarding  her,  "  That 
doesn't  surprise  me,"  said  Mrs.  Stella,  "  for  we  all 
know  the  Dean  could  write  beautifully  about  a 
broomstick."  A  woman — a  true  woman!  Would  5 
you  have  had  one  of  them  forgive  the  other? 

In  a  note  in  his  biography,  Scott  says  that  his 
friend  Doctor  Tuke,  of  Dublin,  has  a  lock  of  Stella's 
hair,  enclosed  in  a  paper  by  Swift,  on  which  are 
written  in  the  Dean's  hand,  the  words:  "Only  a  10 
ivomans  hairy  An  instance,  says  Scott,  of  the 
Dean's  desire  to  veil  his  feelings  under  the  mask  of 
cynical  indifiference. 

See  the  various   notions  of    critics!    Do    those 
words  indicate  indifference  or  an  attempt  to  hide's 
feeling?     Did  you   ever  hear  or  read  four  words 
more  pathetic?     Only  a  woman's  hair;  only  love, 

Vanessa's  impatience  prevailed,  and  she  ventured  on  the  decisive 
step  of  writing  to  Mrs.  Johnson  herself,  requesting  to  know  the 
nature  of  that  connection.  Stella,  in  reply,  informed  her  of  herao 
marriage  with  the  Dean;  and  full  of  the  highest  resentment  against 
Swift  for  having  given  another  female  such  a  right  in  him  as  Miss 
Vanhomrigh's  inquiries  implied,  she  sent  to  him  her  rival's  letter 
of  interrogation,  and  without  seeing  him,  or  awaiting  his  reply,  re- 
tired to  the  house  of  Mr.  Ford,  near  Dublin.  Every  reader  knows  25 
the  consequence.  Swift,  in  one  of  those  paroxysms  of  fury  to  which 
he  was  liable,  both  from  temper  and  disease,  rode  instantly  to 
Marley  Abbey.  As  he  entered  the  apartment,  the  sternness  of  his 
countenance,  which  was  peculiarly  formed  to  express  the  fiercer 
passions,  struck  the  unfortunate  Vanessa  with  such  terror  that  she30 
could  scarce  ask  whether  he  would  not  sit  down.  He  answered 
by  flinging  a  letter  on  the  table,  and,  instantly  leaving  the  house, 
mounted  his  horse,  and  returned  to  Dublin.  When  Vanessa  opened 
the  packet,  she  only  found  her  own  letter  to  Stella.  It  was  her 
death-warrant.  She  sunk  at  once  under  the  disappointment  of  the  35 
delayed  yet  cherished  hopes  which  had  so  long  sickened  her  heart, 
and  beneath  the  unrestrained  wrath  of  him  for  whose  sake  she  had 
indulged  them.  How  long  she  survived  this  last  interview  is  un- 
certain, but  the  time  does  not  seem  to  have  exceeded  a  few  weeks." 
^Scott.  40 


SWIFT  49 

only  fidelity,  only  purity,  innocence,  beauty;  only 
the  tenderest  heart  in  the  world  stricken  and 
wounded,  and  passed  away  now  out  of  reach  of 
pangs  of  hope  deferred,  love  insulted,  and  pitiless 
5 desertion: — otily  that  lock  of  hair  left;  and  memory 
and  remorse,  for  the  guilty  lonely  wretch,  shudder- 
ing over  the  grave  of  his  victim.* 

And  yet  to  have  had  so  much  love,  he  must  have 
given  some.     Treasures  of  wit  and  wisdom,  and 

lo  tenderness,  too,  must  that  man  have  had  locked  up 
in  the  caverns  of  his  gloomy  heart,  and  shown  fit- 
fully to  one  or  two  whom  he  took  in  there.  But  it 
was  not  good  to  visit  that  place.  People  did  not  re- 
main  there    long,    and    suffered    for   having   been 

15  there.f  He  shrank  away  from  all  afifection  sooner 
or  later.  Stella  and  Vanessa  both  died  near  him, 
and  away  from  him.  He  had  not  heart  enough  to 
see  them  die.  He  broke  from  his  fastest  friend, 
Sheridan;   he  slunk  away  from  his  fondest  admirer, 

20  Pope.  His  laugh  jars  on  one's  ear  after  seven 
score  years.  He  was  always  alone — alone  and 
gnashing  in  the  darkness,  except  when  Stella's 
sweet  smile  came  and  shone  upon  him.    When  that 

*  Thackeray  wrote  to   Hayward,  who   had   said   something   of  this 

25  lecture  when  originally  delivered,  and  had  apparently  misunderstood 

this  passage,  that  the  phrase  quoted  seemed  to  him  to  be  "  the  most 

affecting  words  I  ever  heard,  indicating  the  truest  love,  passion,  and 

remorse." — Hayward  Correspondence,   i.    119. 

t  "  M.   Swift  est   Rabelais  dans  son   bon   sens,   et  vivant  en   bonne 

30  compagnie.     II   n'a  pas,   a  la  verite,   la   gaite   du   premier,   mais   il   a 

toute   la   finesse,   la   raison,   le   choix,    le   bon    gout   qui    manquent   a 

notre  cure  de  Meudon.     Ses  vers  sont  d'un  goijt  singulier,  et  presque 

inimitable;    la  bonne  plaisanterie  est  son  partage  en  vers  et  en  prose; 

mais  pour  le   bien   entendre   il   faut   faire   un   petit   voyage   dans   son 

35  pays." — Voltaire:    Lettres  sur  les  Anglais.     Lettre  XX. 


50  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

went,  silence  and  utter  night  closed  over  him.  An 
immense  genius:  an  awful  downfall  and  ruin.  So 
great  a  man  he  seems  to  me,  that  thinking  of  him 
is  like  thinking  of  an  empire  falling.  We  have 
other  great  names  to  mention — none  I  think,  how-  5 
ever,  so  great  or  so  gloomy. 


Comvcvc  an&  HbMson 

A  great  number  of  years  ago,  before  the  passing 
of  the  Reform  Bill,  there  existed  at  Cambridge  a 
certain  debating  club,  called  the  "Union";  and  I 
remember  that  there  was  a  tradition  amongst  the 
5  undergraduates  who  frequented  that  renowned 
school  of  oratory,  that  the  great  leaders  of  the  Op- 
position and  Government  had  their  eyes  upon  the 
University  Debating  Club,  and  that  if  a  man  dis- 
tinguished himself  there  he  ran  some  chance  of  be- 

loing  returned  to  Parliament  as  a  great  nobleman's 
nominee.  So  Jones  of  John's,  or  Thomson  of  Trin- 
ity, would  rise  in  their  might,  and  draping  them- 
selves in  their  gowns,  rally  round  the  monarchy,  or 
hurl  defiance  at  priests  and  kings,  with  the  majesty 

15  of  Pitt  or  the  fire  of  Mirabeau,  fancying  all  the  while 
that  the  great  nobleman's  emissary  was  listening  to 
the  debate  from  the  back  benches,  where  he  was 
sitting  with  the  family  seat  in  his  pocket.  Indeed, 
the  legend  said  that  one  or  two  young  Cambridge 

20  men,  orators  of  the  "  Union,"  were  actually  caught 
up  thence,  and  carried  down  to  Cornwall  or  Old 
Sarum,  and  so  into  Parliament.  And  many  a  young 
fellow  deserted  the  jogtrot  University  curriculum, 
to  hang  on  in  the  dust  behind  the  fervid  wheels  of 

25  the  parliamentary  chariot. 

51 


52  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

Where,  I  have  often  wondered,  were  the  sons  of 
Peers  and  Members  of  ParHament  in  Anne's  and 
George's  time?  Were  they  all  in  the  army,  or  hunt- 
ing in  the  country,  or  boxing  the  watch?  How 
was  it  that  .the  young  gentlemen  from  the  Univer-  5 
sity  got  such  a  prodigious  number  of  places?  A 
lad  composed  a  neat  copy  of  verses  at  Christchurch 
or  Trinity,  in  which  the  death  of  a  great  personage 
was  bemoaned,  the  French  King  assailed,  the 
Dutch  or  Prince  Eugene  complimented,  or  the  re-  lo 
verse;  and  the  party  in  power  was  presently  to  pro- 
vide for  the  young  poet;  and  a  commissionership, 
or  a  post  in  the  Stamps,  or  the  secretaryship  of  an 
Embassy,  or  a  clerkship  in  the  Treasury,  came  into 
the  bard's  possession.  A  wonderful  fruit-bearing  i5 
rod  was  that  of  Busby's.  What  have  men  of  letters 
got  in  our  time?  Think,  not  only  of  Swift,  a  king 
fit  to  rule  in  any  time  or  empire — but  Addison, 
Steele,  Prior,  Tickell,  Congreve,  John  Gay,  John 
Dennis,  and  many  others,  who  got  public  employ-  20 
ment,  and  pretty  little  pickings  out  of  the  public 
purse.*  The  wits  of  whose  names  we  shall  treat  in 
this    lecture    and    two    following,    all    (save    one) 

*  The  following  is  a  conspectus  of  them : — 

ADDisoN.^Commissioner    of    Appeals;      Under-Secretary    of    State;  25 
Secretary     to     the     Lord     Lieutenant     of     Ireland; 
Keeper  of  the  Records  in  Ireland;     Lord  of  Trade; 
and   one  of  the  Principal   Secretaries  of  State,  suc- 
cessively. 

Steele.— Commissioner  of  the  Stamp  Office;    Surveyor  of  the  Royal  30 
Stables   at   Hampton    Court;     and   Governor   of   the 
Royal    Company    of    Comedians;      Commissioner    of 
"  Forfeited   Estates  in   Scotland." 

Prior. — Secretary  of  the  Embassy  at  the  Hague;    Gentleman  of  the 

Bed-chamber    to    King    William;     Secretary    to    the  35 


CONG  REV  E  AND   ADDISON  53 

touched  the  King's  coin,  and  had,  at  some  period 
of  their  Hves,  a  happy  quarter-day  coming  round 
for  them. 

They  all  began  at  school  or  college  in  the  regular 
5  way,  producing  panegyrics  upon  public  characters, 
what  were  called  odes  upon  public  events,  battles, 
sieges,  Court  marriages  and  deaths,  in  which  the 
gods  of  Olympus  and  the  tragic  muse  were  fatigued 
with  invocations,  according  to  the  fashion  of  the 

lo  time  in  France  and  in  England.  "  Aid  us,  Mars, 
Bacchus,  Apollo,"  cried  Addison,  or  Congreve, 
singing  of  William  or  Marlborough.  "  Accourez, 
chastes  nymphes  du  Permesse,"  says  Boileau,  cele- 
brating the  Grand  Monarch.     "  Des  sons  que  ma 

15  lyre  enfante  ces  arbres  sont  rejouis;  marqviez-en 
bien  la  cadence;  et  vous,  vents,  faites  silence!  je 
vais  parler  de  Louis!"  Schoolboys'  themes  and 
foundation  exercises  are  the  only  relics  left  now 
of  this  scholastic  fashion.     The  Olympians  are  left 

20  quite  undisturbed  in  their  mountain.  What  man 
of  note,  what  contributor  to  the  poetry  of  a  country 
newspaper,  would  now  think  of  writing  a  congratu- 

Embassy     in     France;     Under-Secretary     of     State; 
Ambassador  to  France. 
25  TicKELL. — Under-Secretary  of  State;    Secretary  to  the  Lords  Justices 
of  Ireland. 

Congreve. — Commissioner     for     licensing     Hackney-Coaches;     Com- 
missioner   for    Wine    Licences;     place    in    the    Pipe 
Office;     post    in    the    Custom    House;     Secretary    of 
30  Jamaica. 

Gay. — Secretary    to    the    Earl    of    Clarendon    (when    Ambassador    to 
Hanover). 

John  Dennis. — A  place  in  the  Custom  House. 

"  En    Angleterre  .  .  .  les    lettres    sont    plus    en    honneur    qu'ici." — 
35  Voltaire:    Lettres  sur  les  Anglais.     Lettre  XX. 


54  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

latory  ode  on  the  birth  of  the  heir  to  a  dukedom,  or 
the  marriage  of  a  nobleman?  In  the  past  century 
the  young  gentlemen  of  the  Universities  all  exer- 
cised themselves  at  these  queer  compositions;  and 
some  got  fame,  and  some  gained  patrons  and  places  5 
for  life,  and  many  more  took  nothing  by  these  ef- 
forts of  what  they  were  pleased  to  call  their  muses. 

William  Congreve's  *  Pindaric  Odes  are  still  to 
be  found  in  "  Johnson's  Poets,"  that  now  unfre- 
quented poets'-corner,  in  which  so  many  forgotten  lo 
bigwigs  have  a  niche;  but  though  he  was  also 
voted  to  be  one  of  the  greatest  tragic  poets  of  any 
day,  it  was  Congreve's  wit  and  humour  which  first 
recommended  him  to  courtly  fortune.  And  it  is  re- 
corded that  his  first  play,  the  "Old  Bachelor," ^5 
brought  our  author  to  the  notice  of  that  great 
patron  of  English  muses,  Charles  Montague,  Lord 
Halifax — who,  being  desirous  to  place  so  eminent 
a  wit  in  a  state  of  ease  and  tranquillity,  instantly 
made  him  one  of  the  Commissioners  for  licensing  20 
hackney-coaches,  bestowed  on  him  soon  after  a 
place  in  the  Pipe  Ofifice,  and  likewise  a  post  in  the 
Custom  House  of  the  value  of  i6oo.t 

A  commissionership  of  hackney-coaches — a  post 
in  the  Custom  House — a  place  in  the  Pipe  Ofitice,  25 
and  all  for  writing  a  comedy!     Doesn't  it  sound 
like  a  fable,  that  place  in  the  Pipe  Ofifice?  :|:    "  Ah, 

*  He  was  the  son  of  Colonel  William  Congreve,  and  grandson  of 
Richard  Congreve,  Esquire,  of  Congreve  and  Stretton  in  Stafford- 
shire— a  very  ancient  family.  3" 

t  The  Old  Bachelor  was  produced  January  1693.  Congreve  was 
made  Commissioner  of  Hackney-Coaches  in  1695. 

%  "  Pipe. — Pxpa,  in  law,  is  a  roll  iij  the  Exchequer,  called  also  the 
great  roll. 


•     ~  CONG  REV  E   AND    ADDISON  55 

riieureux  temps  que  celui  de  ces  fables!  "  Men  of 
letters  there  still  be:  but  I  doubt  whether  any  Pipe 
Offices  are  left.  The  public  has  smoked  them  long 
ago. 
5  Words,  like  men,  pass  current  for  a  while  with 
the  public,  and,  being  known  everywhere  abroad, 
at  length  take  their  places  in  society;  so  even  the 
most  secluded  and  refined  ladies  here  present  will 
have  heard  the  phrase  from  their  sons  or  brothers 

lo  at  school,  and  will  permit  me  to  call  William  Con- 
greve.  Esquire,  the  most  eminent  literary  "  swell  " 
of  his  age.  In  my  copy  of  "  Johnson's  Lives  "  Con- 
greve's  wig  is  the  tallest,  and  put  on  with  the  jaun- 
tiest air  of  all  the  laurelled  worthies.     "  I  am  the 

15  great  Mr.  Congreve,"  he  seems  to  say,  looking  out 
from  his  voluminous  curls.  People  called  him  the 
great  Mr.  Congreve.*  From  the  beginning  of  his 
career  until  the  end  everybody  admired  him.    Hav- 

"  Pi^e  OMce  is  an  office  in  which  a  person  called  the  Clerk  of  the 
20  Pipe  makes   out   leases   of   Crown   lands,   by   warrant   from   the    Lord 
Treasurer,   or   Commissioners  of  the   Treasury,   or   Chancellor  of  the 
Exchequer. 

"  Clerk    of    the    Pipe    makes    up    all    accounts    of    sheriffs,    &c." — 
Rees:     Cyclopad.     Art.    Pipe. 
25      "  Pipe  OfRcc. — Spelman   thinks   so   called,   because   the   papers   were 
kept  in  a  large  pipe  or  cask. 

"  '  These    be    at    last    brought    into    that    office    of    her    Majesty's 
Exchequer,   which   we,   by  a  metaphor,   do   call   the  pipe  .  .  .  because 
the  whole  receipt  is  finally  conveyed  into  it  by  means  of  divers  small 
20  pipes  or  quills.' — Bacon:    The  Office  of  Alienations." 

[We  are  indebted  to  Richardson's  Dictionary  for  this  fragment  of 
erudition.  But  a  modern  man  of  letters  can  know  little  on  these 
points — by  experience.] 
*  "  It  has  been  observed  that  no  change  of  Ministers  affected  him 
J3  in  the  least;  nor  was  he  ever  removed  from  any  post  that  was 
given  to  him,  except  to  a  better.  His  place  in  the  Custom  House, 
and  his  office  of  Secretary  in  Jamaica,  are  said  to  have  brought 
him  in  upwards  of  twelve  hundred  a  year."— Biog.  Brit.  Art. 
Congreve. 


56  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

ing  got  his  education  in  Ireland,  at  the  same  school 
and  college  with  Swift,  he  came  to  live  in  the  Mid- 
dle Temple,  London,  where  he  luckily  bestowed  no 
attention  to  the  law;  but  splendidly  frequented  the 
cofTee-houses  and  theatres,  and  appeared  in  the  5 
side-box,  the  tavern,  the  Piazza,  and  the  Mall,  bril- 
liant, beautiful,  and  victorious  from  the  first. 
Everybody  acknowledged  the  young  chieftain.  The 
great  Mr.  Dryden  *  declared  .that  he  was  equal  to 
Shakspeare,  and  bequeathed  to  him  his  own  un-io 
disputed  poetical  crown,  and  writes  of  him:    "  Mr. 

*  Dryden  addressed  his  "  twelfth  epistle  "  to  "  My  dear  friend, 
Mr.  Congreve,"  on  his  comedy  called  the  Double  Dealer,  in  which  he 
says : — 

"  Great  Jonson  did  by  strength  of  judgment   please;  15 

Yet,  doubling  Fletcher's  force,  he  wants  his  ease. 
In   differing  talents  both   adorned  their  age: 
One  for  the  study,  t'other  for  the  stage. 
But  both  to   Congreve  justly  shall   submit, 

One  match'd  in  judgment,  both  o'ermatched  in  wit.  20 

In  him  all  beauties  of  this  age  we  see,"  &c.  &c. 

The   Double  Dealer,   however,   was   not   so   palpable   a   hit   as   the   Old 
Bachelor,    but,    at    first,    met    with    opposition.      The    critics    having 
fallen    foul    of    it,    our    "  Swell  "    applied    the    scourge    to    that    pre- 
sumptuous body,   in  the  "  Epistle  Dedicatory  "  to  the  "  Right  Hon- 25 
ourable   Charles   Montague." 

"  I  was  conscious,"  said  he,  "  where  a  true  critic  migiit  have  put 
me  upon  my  defence.  I  was  prepared  for  the  attack  .  .  .  but  I 
have  not  heard  anything  said  sufficient  to  provoke  an  answer." 

He  goes  on —  30 

"  But  there  is  one  thing  at  which  I  am  more  concerned  than  all 
the  false  criticisms  that  are  made  upon  me;  and  that  is,  some  of  the 
ladies  are  offended.  I  am  heartily  sorry  for  it;  for  I  declare,  I 
would  rather  disoblige  all  the  critics  in  the  world  than  one  of  the 
fair  sex.  They  are  concerned  that  I  have  represented  some  women  35 
vicious  and  affected.  How  can  I  help  it  ?  It  is  the  business  of  a 
comic  poet  to  paint  the  vices  and  follies  of  human  kind.  ...  I 
should  be  very  glad  of  an  opportunity  to  make  my  compliments  to 
those  ladies  who  are  offended.  But  they  can  no  more  e.xpect  it  in 
a  comedy,  than  to  be  tickled  by  a  surgeon  when  he  is  letting  their  4^ 
blood," 


CONGREVE   AND    ADDISON  57 

Congrevc  has  done  me  the  favour  to  review  the 
'^Eneis  '  and  compare  my  version  with  the  original. 
I  shall  never  be  ashamed  to  own  that  this  excellent 
young  man  has  showed  me  many  faults  which  I 
5  have  endeavoured  to  correct." 

The  "  excellent  young  man  "  was  but  three  or 
four  and  twenty  when  the  great  Dryden  thus  spoke 
of  him:  the  greatest  literary  chief  in  England,  the 
veteran  field-marshal  of  letters,  himself  the  marked 

10  man  of  all  Europe,  and  the  centre  of  a  school  of 
wits  who  daily  gathered  round  his  chair  and  to- 
bacco-pipe at  Will's.  Pope  dedicated  his  "  Iliad  " 
to  him;*  Swift,  Addison,  Steele,  all  acknowledge 
Congreve's  rank,  and  lavish  compliments  upon  him. 

15  Voltaire  went  to  wait  upon  him  as  on  one  of  the  Rep- 
resentatives of  Literature;  and  the  man  who  scarce 
praises  any  other  living  person — who  flung  abuse 
at  Pope,  and  Swift,  and  Steele,  and  Addison — the 
Grub  Street  Timon,  old  John  Dennis,t  was  hat  in 

20  hand  to  Mr.  Congreve;  and  said  that  when  he  re- 
tired from  the  stage,  Comedy  went  with  him. 

Instead  of  endeavouring  to  raise  a  vain  monument  to  myself, 
let  me  leave  behind  me  a  memorial  of  my  friendship  with  one  of  the 
most  valuable  men  as  well  as  finest  writers  of  my  age  and  country— 

25  one  who  has  tried,  and  knows  by  his  own  experience,  how  hard  an 
undertaking  it  is  to  do  justice  to  Homer— and  one  who,  I  am  sure, 
seriously  rejoices  with  me  at  the  period  of  my  labours.  To  him, 
therefore,  having  brought  this  long  work  to  a  conclusion,  I  desire 
to   dedicate   it,   and   to   have   the   honour   and   satisfaction   of   placing 

30  together  in  this  manner  the  names  of  Mr.  Congreve  and  of— 
A.  V oil.." —Postscript  to  Translation  of  the  Iliad  of  Homer,  March  25, 
1720. 

t  "  When    asked    why    he    listened    to    the    praises    of    Dennis,    he 
said    he    had    much    rather    be    flattered    than    abused.    Swift    had    a 

35  particular  friendship  for  our  author,  and  generously  took  him  under 
his  protection  in  his  high  authoritative  manner."— Thos.  Davies: 
Dramatic  Miscellanies. 


SS  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

Nor  was  he  less  victorious  elsewhere.  He  was 
admired  in  the  drawing-rooms  as  well  as  the  coffee- 
houses; as  much  beloved  in  the  side-box  as  on  the 
stage.  He  loved,  and  conquered,  and  jilted  the 
beautiful  Bracegirdle,*  the  heroine  of  all  his  plays,  5 
the  favourite  of  all  the  town  of  her  day;  and  the 
Duchess  of  Alarlborough,  Marlborough's  daughter, 
had  such  an  admiration  of  him,  that  when  he  died 
she  had  an  ivory  figure  made  to  imitate  him,f  and 
a  large  wax  doll  with  gouty  feet  to  be  dressed  just  10 
as  the  great  Congreve's  gouty  feet  were  dressed  in 
his  great  lifetime.  He  saved  some  money  by  his 
Pipe  office,  and  his  Custom  House  office,  and  his 
Hackney-Coach  office,  and  nobly  left  it,|  not  to 

*  "  Congreve  was  very  intimate  for  years  with  Mrs.  Bracegirdle,  15 
and  lived  in  the  same  street,  his  house  very  near  hers,  until  his 
acquaintance  with  the  young  Duchess  of  Marlborough.  He  then 
quitted  that  house.  The  Duchess  showed  me  a  diamond  necklace 
(which  Lady  Di  used  afterwards  to  wear)  that  cost  seven  thousand 
pounds,  and  was  purchased  with  the  money  Congreve  left  her.  20 
How  much  better  would  it  have  been  to  have  given  it  to  poor  Mrs. 
Bracegirdle." — Dr.   Young.    Spence's  Anecdotes. 

t  "  A  glass  was  put  in  the  hand  of  the  statue,  which  was  sup- 
posed to  bow  to  her  Grace  and  to  nod  in  approbation  of  what  she 
spoke  to   it."^THOS.    Davies:   Dramatic  Miscellanies.  25 

I  The  sum  Congreve  left  Mrs.  Bracegirdle  was  £200,  as  is  said  in 
the  Dramatic  Misccllani'es  of  Tom  Davies;  where  are  some  particu- 
lars  about   this   charming   actress   and   beautiful   woman. 

She  had  a  "  lively  aspect,"   says  Tom,   on  the  authority  of  Cibber, 
and   "  such   a   glow   of   health    and   cheerfulness   in   her   countenance,  ^o 
as   inspired   everybody   with   desire."     "  Scarce   an   audience   saw  her 
that  were  not  half  of  them  her  lovers." 

Congreve  and  Rowe  courted  her  in  the  persons  of  their  lovers. 
"  In  Tamerlane,  Rowe  courted  her  Selima,  in  the  person  of 
Axalla  .  .  .;  Congreve  insinuated  his  addresses  in  his  Valentine  to  35 
her  Angelica,  in  Loz'e  for  Love ;  in  his  Osmyn  to  her  Almena,  in  the 
Mourning  Bride;  and,  lastly,  in  his  Mirabel  to  her  Millamant,  in  the 
Way  of  the  World.  Mirabel,  the  fine  gentleman  of  the  play,  is,  I 
believe,  not  very  distant  from  the  real  character  of  Congreve." — 
Dramatic  Miscellanies,  vol.   iii.    1784.  40 

She  retired  from  the  stage  when   Mrs.   Oldficld   began  to  be  the 


CONGREVE   AND    ADDISON  59 

Bracegirdle,  who  wanted  it.  l)iit  to  the  Duchess  of 
Marlborough,  who  didn't.* 

How  can  I  introduce  to  you  that  merry  and 
shameless  Comic  Muse  who  won  him  such  a  repu- 
Station?  Nell  Gwynn's  servant  fought  the  other 
footman  for  having  called  his  mistress  a  bad  name; 
and  in  like  manner,  and  with  pretty  little  epithets, 
Jeremy  Collier  attacked  that  godless  reckless  Jeze- 
bel, the  English  comedy  of  his  time,  and  called  her 
lowhat  Nell  Gwynn's  man's  fellow-servants  called 
Nell  Gwynn's  man's  mistress.  The  servants  of  the 
theatre,  Dryden,  Congreve,f  and  others,  defended 

public  favourite.  She  died  in  1748,  in  the  eighty-fifth  year  of  her 
age. 
15  *  Johnson  calls  his  legacy  the  "accumulation  of  attentive  parsi- 
mony, which,"  he  continues,  "  though  to  her  (the  Duchess)  super- 
fluous and  useless,  might  have  given  great  assistance  to  the  ancient 
family  from  which  he  descended,  at  that-  time,  by  the  imprudence 
of  his  relation,  reduced  to  difliculties  and  distress." — Lives  of  the 
20Pocts. 

t  He  replied  to  Collier,  in  the  pamphlet  called  Amendments  of  Mr. 
Collier's  False  and  Imperfect  Citations,  &c.  A  specimen  or  two  are 
subjoined: — 

"  The   greater  part  of  these   examples  which   he   has   produced   are 
^5 only  demonstrations  of  his  own   impurity:     they  only  savour  of  his 
utterance,  and  were  sweet  enough  till   tainted  by  his  breath. 

"  Where  the  expression  is  unblameable  in  its  own  pure  and  genuine 
signification,    he    enters    into    it,    himself,    like    the    evil    spirit;     he 
possesses   the   innocent   phrase,   and   makes   it   bellow   forth   his   own 
J*-' blasphemies. 

"  If  I  do  not  return  him  civilities  in  calling  him  names,  it  is  be- 
cause I  am  not  very  well  versed  in  his  nomenclatures.  ...  I  will 
only  call  him  Mr.  Collier,  and  that  I  will  call  him  as  often  as  I  think 
he  shall  deserve  it. 
35  "  The  corruption  of  a  rotten  divine  is  the  generation  of  a  sour 
critic." 

"  Congreve,"  says  Doctor  Johnson,  "  a  very  young  man,  elated 
with  success,  and  impatient  of  censure,  assumed  an  air  of  confidence 
and  security.  .  .  .  The  dispute  was  protracted  through  ten  years; 
40  but  at  iast  comedy  grew  more  modest,  and  Collier  lived  to  see  the 
reward  of  his  labours  in  the  reformation  of  the  theatre." — Life  of 
Congreve. 


Co  ENGLISH  humourists" 

themselves  with  the  same  success,  and  for  the  same 
cause  which  set  Nell's  lacquey  fighting.  She  was  a 
disreputable,  daring,  laughing,  painted  French  bag- 
gage, that  Comic  Muse.  She  came  over  from  the 
Continent  .with  Charles  (who  chose  many  more  of  5 
his  female  friends  there)  at  the  Restoration — a  wild 
dishevelled  La'is,  with  eyes  bright  with  wit  and  wine 
— a  saucy  Court-favourite  that  sat  at  the  King's 
knees,  and  laughed  in  his  face,  and  when  she 
showed  her  bold  cheeks  at  her  chariot-window,  had  lo 
some  of  the  noblest  and  most  famous  people  of  the 
land  bowing  round  her  wheel.  She  was  kind  and 
popular  enough,  that  daring  Comedy,  that  auda- 
cious poor  Nell:  she  was  gay  and  generous,  kind, 
frank,  as  such  people  can  afford  to  be:  and  the  men  15 
who  lived  with  her  and  laughed  with  her,  took  her 
pay  and  drank  her  wine,  turned  out  when  the  Puri- 
tans hooted  her,  to  fight  and  defend  her.  But  the 
jade  was  indefensible,  and  it  is  pretty  certain  her 
servants  knew  it.  20 

There  is  life  and  death  going  on  in  everything: 
truth  and  lies  always  at  battle.  Pleasure  is  always 
warring  against  self-restraint.  Doubt  is  always 
crying  Psha!  and  sneering.  A  man  in  life,  a  hu- 
mourist, in  writing  about  life,  sways  over  to  one  25 
principle  or  the  other,  and  laughs  with  the  rever- 
ence for  right  and  the  love  of  truth  in  his  heart,  or 
laughs  at  these  from  the  other  side.  Didn't  I  tell 
you  that  dancing  was  a  serious  business  to  Harle- 
quin? I  have  read  two  or  three  of  Congreve's  plays  3° 
over  before  speaking  of  him ;  and  my  feelings  were 
rather  like  those,  which  I  dare  fay  most  of  us  here 


CONG  REV  E   AND    ADDISON  6 1 

have  had,  at  Pompeii,  looking  at  Salhist's  house 
and  the  rehcs  of  an  orgy;  a  dried  wine-jar  or  two, 
a  charred  supper-table,  the  breast  of  a  dancing-girl 
pressed  against  the  ashes,  the  laughing  skull  of  a 
5  jester:  a  perfect  stillness  round  about,  as  the 
cicerone  twangs  his  moral,  and  the  blue  sky  shines 
calmly  over  the  ruin.  The  Congreve  Muse  is  dead, 
and  her  song  choked  in  Time's  ashes.  We  gaze  at 
the  skeleton,  and  wonder  at  the  life  which  once  re- 

lo  veiled  in  its  mad  veins.  We  take  the  skull  up,  and 
muse  over  the  frolic  and  daring,  the  wit,  scorn,  pas- 
sion, hope,  desire,  with  which  that  empty  bowl  once 
fermented.  We  think  of  the  glances  that  allured, 
the  tears  that  melted,  of  the  bright  eyes  that  shone 

15  in  those  vacant  sockets;  and  of  lips  whispering 
love,  and  cheeks  dimpling  with  smiles,  that  once  cov- 
ered yon  ghastly  yellow  framework.  They  used  to 
call  those  teeth  pearls  once.  See,  there's  the  cup  she 
drank  from,  the  gold  chain  she  wore  on  her  neck, 

20  the  vase  which  held  the  rouge  for  her  cheeks,  her 
looking-glass,  and  the  harp  she  used  to  dance  to. 
Instead  of  a  feast  we  find  a  gravestone,  and  in  place 
of  a  mistress,  a  few  bones! 

Reading  in  these  plays  now,  is  like  shutting  your 

25  ears  and  looking  at  people  dancing.  What  does  it 
mean?  the  measures,  the  grimaces,  the  bowing, 
shuffling,  and  retreating,  the  cavalier  scul  advancing 
upon  those  ladies — those  ladies  and  men  twirling 
round  at  the  end  in  a  mad  galop,  after  which  every- 

30  body  bows  and  the  quaint  rite  is  celebrated.  With- 
out the  music  we  can't  understand  that  comic  dance 
of  the  last  century — its  strange  gravity  and  gaiety. 


62  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

its  decorum  or  its  indecorum.  It  has  a  jargon  of  its 
own  quite  unlike  life;  a  sort  of  moral  of  its  own 
quite  unlike  life  tod.  I'm  afraid  it's  a  Heathen  mys- 
tery, symbolising  a  Pagan  doctrine;  protesting — 
as  the  Pompeians  very  likely  were,  assembled  at  5 
their  theatre  and  laughing  at  their  games;  as  Sal- 
lust  and  his  friends,  and  their  mistresses  protested, 
crowned  with  flowers,  with  cups  in  their  hands — 
against  the  new,  hard,  ascetic,  pleasure-hating  doc- 
trine whose  gaunt  disciples,  lately  passed  over  fromio 
the  Asian  shores  of  the  Mediterranean,  were  for 
breaking  the  fair  images  of  Venus  and  flinging  the 
altars  of  Bacchus  down. 

I  fancy  poor  Congreve's  theatre  is  a  temple  of 
Pagan  delights,  and  mysteries  not  permitted  except i5 
among  heathens.  I  fear  the  theatre  carries  down  that 
ancient  tradition  and  worship,  as  masons  have  carried 
their  secret  signs  and  rites  from  temple  to  temple. 
When  the  libertine  hero  carries  off  the  beauty  in  the 
play,  and  the  dotard  is  laughed  to  scorn  for  having  20 
the  young  wife:    in  the  ballad,  when  the  poet  bids 
his   mistress   to  gather  roses  while   she  may,  and 
warns  her  that  old  Time  is  still  a-flying:    in  the 
ballet,  when  honest  Corydon  courts  Phillis  under 
the  treillage  of  the  pasteboard  cottage,  and  leers  25 
at  her  over  the  head  of  grandpapa  in  red  stockings, 
who  is  opportunely  asleep;    and  when  seduced  by 
the  invitations  of  the  rosy  youth  she  comes  forward 
to  the  footlights,  and  they  perform  on  each  other's 
tiptoes  that  pas  which  you  all  know,  and  which  is  3° 
only  interrupted  by  old  grandpapa  awaking  from 
his  doze  at  the  pasteboard  chalet  (whither  he  re- 


CONG  REV  E  AND   ADDISON  ^l 

turns  to  take  another  nap  in  case  the  young  people 
get  an  encore) :  when  Harlequin,  splendid  in 
youth,  strength,  and  agility,  arrayed  in  gold  and  a 
thousand  colours,  springs  over  the  heads  of  count- 
5  less  perils,  leaps  down  the  throat  of  bewildered 
giants,  and,  dauntless  and  splendid,  dances  danger 
down:  when  Mr.  Punch,  that  godless  old  rebel, 
breaks  every  law  and  laughs  at  it  with  odious 
triumph,    outwits    his    lawyer,    bullies    the    beadle, 

lo  knocks  his  wife  about  the  head,  and  hangs  the 
hangman, — don't  you  see  in  the  comedy,  in  the 
song,  in  the  dance,  in  the  ragged  little  Punch's  pup- 
pet-show— the  Pagan  protest?  Doesn't  it  seem  as 
if  Life  puts  in  its  plea  and  sings  its  comment?  Look 

15  how  the  lovers  walk  and  hold  each  other's  hands 
and  whisper!  Sings  the  chorus — "There  is  noth- 
ing like  love,  there  is  nothing  like  youth,  there  is 
nothing  like  beauty  of  your  springtime.  Look! 
how  old  age  tries  to  meddle  with  merry  sport!   Beat 

20 him  with  his  own  crutch,  the  wrinkled  old  dotard! 
There  is  nothing  like  youth,  there  is  nothing  like 
beauty,  there  is  nothing  like  strength.  Strength 
and  valour  win  beauty  and  youth.  Be  brave  and 
conquer.    Be  young  and  happy.     Enjoy,  enjoy,  en- 

25  joy!  Would  you  know  the  Scgrcto  per  esscr  fclicc? 
Here  it  is,  in  a  smiling  mistress  and  a  cup  of  Faler- 
nian:"  As  the  boy  tosses  the  cup  and  sings  his 
song — hark!  what  is  that  chaunt  coming  nearer 
and  nearer?    What  is  that  dirge  which  will  disturb 

30  us?  The  lights  of  the  festival  burn  dim — the  cheeks 
turn  pale — the  voice  quavers — and  the  cup  drops 


^4  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

on  the  floor.     Who's  there?     Death  and  Fate  are 
at  the  gate,  and  they  zc///  come  in. 

Congreve's   comic   feast   flares   with   hghts,   and 
round  the  table,  emptying  their  flaming  bowls  of 
drink,    and     exchanging    the    wildest    jests     and  5 
ribaldry,  sit  men  and  women,  waited  on  by  rascally 
valets   and   attendants   as    dissolute    as    their   mis- 
tresses— perhaps  the  very  worst   company   in  the 
world.     There    doesn't    seem  to  be  a  pretence  of 
morals.     At  the  head  of  the  table  sits  Mirabel  or  10 
Belmour  (dressed  in  the  French  fashion  and  waited 
on  by  English  imitators  of  Scapin  and   Frontin). 
Their  calling  is  to  be  irresistible,  and  to  conquer 
everywhere.     Like  the  heroes  of  the  chivalry  story, 
whose  long-winded  loves  and  combats  they  were^S 
sending  out  of  fashion,  they  are  always  splendid 
and  triumphant — overcome  all   dangers,  vanquish 
all  enemies,  and  win  the  beauty  at  the  end.   Fathers, 
husbands,   usurers,   are  the   foes   these   champions 
contend  with.     They  are  merciless  in  old  age,  in- 20 
variably,  and    an    old    man  plays  the  part  in  the 
dramas  which  the  wicked  enchanter  or  the  great 
blundering  giant  performs  in  the  chivalry  tales,  who 
threatens  and  grumbles  and  resists — a  huge  stupid 
obstacle  always  overcome  by  the  knight.     It  is  an  25 
old  man  with  a  money-box:    Sir  Belmour  his  son 
or  nephew  spends  his  money  and  laughs  at  him. 
It  is  an  old  man  with  a  young  wife  whom  he  locks 
up:    Sir  Mirabel  robs  him  of  his  wife,  trips  up  his 
gouty  old  heels  and  leaves  the  old  l^unks.    The  old  3° 
fool,  what  business  has  he  to  hoard  his  money,  or 
to  lock  up  blushing  eighteen?    Money  is  for  youth, 


CONGREVE   AND    ADDISON  65 

love  is  for  youth,  away  vvith  the  old  people.  When 
Millamant  is  sixty,  having  of  course  divorced  the 
first  Lady  Millamant,  and  married  his  friend  Dori- 
court's  granddaughter  out  of  the  nursery — it  will 
5 be  his  turn;  and  young  Belmour  will  make  a  fool  of 
him.  All  this  pretty  morality  you  have  in  the  come- 
dies of  William  Congreve,  Esquire.  They  are  full 
of  wit.  Such  manners  as  he  observes,  he  observes 
with  great  humour;  but  ah!  it's  a  weary  feast,  that 
10  banquet  of  wit  where  no  love  is.  It  palls  very 
soon;  sad  indigestions  follow  it  and  lonely  blank 
headaches  in  the  morning. 

I  can't  pretend  to  quote  scenes  from  the  splendid 
Congreve's  plays  * — which  are  undeniably  bright, 

jg      *  The    scene   of   Valentine's    pretended    madness    in    Love    for   Love 
is  a  splendid  specimen  of  Congreve's  daring  manner: — 

"  Scandal.     And  have  you  given  your  master  a  hint  of  their  plot 
upon  him  ? 

"Jeremy.  Yes,    sir;     he    says    he'll   favour   it,    and   mistake   her   for 
CO  Angelica. 

"  Scandal.  It  may  make  us  sport. 
"  Foresight.  Mercy  on  us  ! 

"  Valentine.  Husht— interrupt  me  not— I'll  v/hisper  predictions  to 
thee,  and  thou  shalt  prophesie;— I  am  truth,  and  can  teach  thy 
25  tongue  a  new  trick,— I  have  told  thee  v/hat's  passed— now  I'll  tell 
what's  to  come:— Dost  thou  know  what  will  happen  to-morrow  ? 
Answer  me  not— for  I  will  tell  thee.  To-morrow  knaves  will  thrive 
thro'  craft,  and  fools  thro'  fortune:  and  honesty  will  go  as  it  did, 
frost-nipt  in  a  summer  suit.  Ask  me  questions  concerning  to- 
30  morrow. 

"  Scandal.    Ask  him,  Mr.  Foresight. 
"  Foresight.     Pray  what  will   be   done  at   Court  ? 
"  Valentine.     Scandal    will    tell    you;— I    am    truth,    I    never    come 
there. 
35      "  Foresight.    In  the  city  ? 

"  Valentine.  Oh,  prayers  will  be  said  in  empty  churches  at  the 
usual  hours.  Yet  you  will  see  such  zealous  faces  behind  couiiters 
as  if  religion  were  to  be  sold  in  every  shop.  Oh,  things  will  go 
methodically  in  the  city,  the  clocks  will  strike  twelve  at  noon,  and 
40  the  horn'd  iierd  buzz  in  the  Exchange  at  two.  Husbands  and  wives 
will   drive   distinct   trades,   and   care  and   pleasure   separately   occupy 


66  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

witty,  and  daring — any  more  than  I  conld  ask  you 
to  hear  the  dialogue  of  a  witty  bargeman  and  a 
brilliant    fishwoman   exchanging   compliments   at 

the  family.  Coffee-houses  will  be  full  of  smoke  and  stratagem.  And 
the  crept  'prentice  that  sweeps  his  master's  shop  in  the  morning,  5 
may,  ten  to  one,  dirty  his  sheets  before  night.  But  there  are  two 
things,  that  you  will  see  very  strange;  which  are,  wanton  wives 
with  their  legs  at  liberty,  and  tame  cuckolds  with  chains  about  their 
necks.  But  hold,  I  must  examine  you  before  I  go  further;  you 
look   suspiciously.     Are  you  a  husband  ?  ^O 

"  Foresight.     I   am  married. 

"  Valentine.  Poor  creature  !  Is  your  wife  of  Covent-garden 
Parish  ? 

"Foresight.     No;     St.   Martin's-in-the-Fields. 

"  Valentine.  Alas,  poor  man  !  his  eyes  are  sunk,  and  his  hands  15 
shrivelled;  his  legs  dwindled,  and  his  back  bow'd.  Pray,  pray  for 
a  metamorphosis — change  thy  shape,  and  shake  off  age;  get  thee 
Medea's  kettle  and  be  boiled  anew;  come  forth  with  lab'ring  callous 
hands,  and  chine  of  steel,  and  Atlas'  shoulders.  Let  Taliacotius 
trim  the  calves  of  twenty  chairmen,  and  make  thee  pedestals  to  20 
stand  erect  upon,  and  look  matrimony  in  the  face.  Ha,  ha,  ha  ! 
That  a  man  should  have  a  stomach  to  a  wedding  supper,  when  the 
pidgeons  ought  rather  to  be  laid  to  his  feet  !     Ha,  ha,  ha  ! 

"  Foresight.    His  frenzy  is  very  high  now,  Mr.  Scandal. 

"  Scandal.    I   believe  it  is  a   spring-tide.  25 

"Foresight.  Very  likely — truly;  you  understand  these  matters. 
Mr.  Scandal,  I  shall  be  very  glad  to  confer  with  you  about  these 
things  he  has  uttered.  His  sayings  are  very  mysterious  and  hiero- 
glyphical. 

"  Valentine.     Oh  !     why   would   Angelica   be   absent   from   my   eyes  30 
so  long  ? 

"  Jeremy.    She's  here,  sir. 

"  Mrs.  Foresight.    Now,  sister  ! 

"  Mrs.  Frail.    O  Lord  !    what  must  I  say  ? 

"  Scandal.    Humour  him,  madam,  by  all  means.  35 

"  Valentine.  Where  is  she  ?  Oh  !  I  see  her:  she  comes,  like 
Riches,  Health,  and  Liberty  at  once,  to  a  despairing,  starving,  and 
abandoned  wretch.     Oh — welcome,   welcome  ! 

"  Mrs.  Frail.    How  d'ye,  sir  ?     Can  I  serve  you  ? 

"  Valentine.  Hark'ee — I  have  a  secret  to  tell  you.  Endymion  and  4^ 
the  moon  shall  meet  us  on  Mount  Latmos,  and  we'll  be  married  in 
the  dead  of  night.  P>ut  say  not  a  word.  Hymen  shall  put  his  torch 
into  a  dark  lanthorn,  that  it  may  be  secret;  and  Juno  shall  give 
her  peacock  poppy-water,  that  he  may  fold  his  ogling  tail;  and 
Argus's  hundred  eyes  be  shut — ha  !  Nobody  shall  know,  but  45 
Jeremy. 

"Mrs.  Frail.  No,  no;  we'll  keep  it  secret;  it  shall  be  done 
presently. 


CONG  REV  E   AND    ADDISON  6/ 

Billingsgate;  but  some  of  his  verses — they  were 
amongst  the  most  famous  lyrics  of  the  time,  and 
pronounced  equal  to  Horace  by  his  contemporaries 

"  Valentine.  The  sooner  the  better.  Jeremy,  come  hither— closer— 
5  that  none  may  overhear  us.  Jeremy,  I  can  tell  you  news:  Angelica 
is  turned  nun,  and  I  am  turning  friar,  and  yet  we'll  marry  one 
another  in  spite  of  the  Pope.  Get  me  a  cowl  and  beads,  that  I  may 
play  my  part;  for  she'll  meet  me  two  hours  hence  in  black  and 
white,  and  a  long  veil  to  cover  the  project,  and  we  won't  see  one 
lO  another's  faces  'till  we  have  done  something  to  be  ashamed  of,  and 
then  we'll  blush  once  for  all.  .  .  . 

"  Enter    Tattle. 

"  Tattle.    Do  you  know  me,  Valentine  ? 
"  Valentine.    You  ! — who  are  you  ?     No,   I   hope  not. 
15      "  Tattle.    I  am  Jack  Tattle,  your  friend. 

"  Valentine.     My   friend  !     What   to   do  ?     I    am   no    married    man, 
and   thou   canst   not   lye   with   my   wife;     I   am   very   poor,   and   thou 
canst  not  borrow  money  of  me.     Then,  what  employment  have  I  for 
a  friend  ? 
"O      "  Tattle.    Ha  !     A  good  open  speaker,  and  not  to  be  trusted  with 
a  secret. 
"  Angelica.    Do  you  know  me,   Valentine  ? 
"  Valentine.    Oh,  very  well. 
"  Angelica.    Who  am   I  ? 
25      "  Valentine.     You're  a  woman,   one  to  whom    Heaven   gave   beauty 
when  it  grafted  roses  on  a  brier.     You  are  the  reflection  of  Heaven 
in  a  pond;     and  he  that  leaps  at  you  is  sunk.     You  are  all  white— 
a  sheet  of  spotless  paper — when  you   first  are  born;    but  you  are  to 
be  scrawled   and   blotted   by  every   goose's   quill.     I   know  you;     for 
-^O  I  loved  a  woman,  and  loved  her  so  long  that  I  found  out  a  strange 
thi    g:    I  found  out  what  a  woman  was  good  for. 
"  Tattle.    Ay  !     pr'ythee,  what's  that  ? 
"  Valentine.    Why,  to  keep  a  secret. 
"  Tattle.    O   Lord  ! 
35      "  Valentine.    Oh,  exceeding  good  to  keep  a  secret;    for,  though  she 
should  tell,  yet  she  is  not  to  be  believed. 
"  Tattle.     Hah  !     Good  again,   faith. 

"  Valentine.  I  would  have  musick.  Sing  me  the  song  that  I 
like." — Congreve:  Love  for  Love. 
40  There  is  a  Mrs.  Nicklehy,  of  the  year  1700,  in  Congreve's  comedy 
of  The  Double  Dealer,  in  whose  character  the  author  introduces  some 
w.onderful  traits  of  roguish  satire.  She  is  practised  on  by  the  gal- 
lants "of  the  play,  and  no  more  knows  how  to  resist  them  than  any 
of  the  ladies  above  quoted  could  resist  Congreve. 
45      "  Lady  Plyant.     Oh  !     reflect   upon   the  horror   of  your  conduct  \ 


68  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

— may  give  an  idea  of  his  power,  of  his  grace,  of 
his  daring  manner,  his  magnificence  in  comphment, 
and  his  poHshed  sarcasm.  He  writes  as  if  he  was 
so    accustomed    to    conquer,   tliat   he  has  a  poor 

Offering  to  pervert  me  "  [the  joke  is  that  the  gentleman  is  pressing  e 
the  lady  for  her  daughter's  hand,  not  for  )ier  own] — "  perverting  me 
from  the  road  of  virtue,  in  which  I  have  trod  thus  long,  and  never 
made  one  trip — not  one  faux  pas.  Oh,  consider  it:  what  would  you 
have  to  answer  for,  if  you  should  provoke  me  to  frailty  !  Alas  ! 
humanity  is  feeble,  Heaven  knows  !  Very  feeble,  and  unable  to  lo 
support  itself. 

"  Meltefont.     Where     am     I  ?       Is     it     day  ?      and     am     I     awake  ? 
Madam 

"  Lady  Plyant.     O   Lord,  ask   me  the  question  !      I   swear  I'll   deny 
it— therefore   don't   ask    me;     nay,    you    shan't   ask    me,    I    swear    I'll  15 
deny  it.     O   Gemini,   you   have   brought  all  the  blood   into   my  face; 
I  warrant  I  am  as  red  as  a  turkey-cock.     O  fie,  cousin  Mellefont  ! 

"  Mellefont.    Nay,  madam,  hear  me;    I  mean 

"Lady  Plyant.    Hear  you  ?     No,  no;    I'll  deny  you   first,  and  hear 
you    afterwards.      For    one    does    not    know    how    one's    mind    may  20 
change  upon  hearing— hearing  is  one  of  the  senses  and  all  the  senses 
are  fallible.     I  won't  trust  my  honour,   I   assure  you;     my  honour  is 
infallible  and  uncomatable. 

"  Mellefont.    For  Heaven's  sake,  madam ^ 

"  Lady  Plyant.     Oh,    name   it    no    more.      Bless   me,    how    can    you  25 
talk  of  Heaven,  and  have  so  much  wickedness  in  your  heart  ?     May 
be,  you  don't  think  it  a  sin.     They  say  some  of  you  gentlemen  don't 

think  it  a  sin;    but  still,  my  honour,  if  it  were  no  sin But,  then, 

to  marry  my  daughter  for  the  convenience  of  frequent  opportunities 
—I'll  never  consent  to  that:    as  sure  as  can  be,  I'll  break  the  match. 30 

"  Mellefont.     Death  and  amazement  !     Madam,   upon   my  knees 

"  Lady  Plyant.  Nay,  nay,  rise  up  !  come,  you  shall  see  my  good- 
nature. I  know  love  is  powerful,  and  nobody  can  help  his  passion. 
'T^is  not  your  fault;  nor  I  swear,  it  is  not  mine.  How  can  I  help 
it,  if  I  have  charms  ?  And  how  can  you  help  it,  if  you  are  made  335 
captive  ?  I  swear  it  is  pity  it  should  be  a  fault;  but,  my  honour. 
Well,  but  your  honour,  too— but  the  sin  !  Well,  but  the  necessity. 
O  Lord,  here's  somebody  coming.  I  dare  not  stay.  Well,  you  must 
consider  of  your  crime:  and  strive  as  much  as  can  be  against  it- 
strive,  be  sure;  but  don't  be  melancholick— don't  despair;  but  neverio 
think  that  I'll  grant  you  anything.  O  Lord,  no;  but  be  sure  j'ou 
lay  aside  all  thoughts  of  the  marriage,  for  though  I  know  you  don't 
love  Cynthia,  only  as  a  blind  to  your  passion  for  me — yet  it  wiF 
make  me  jealous.  O  Lord,  what  did  I  say  ?  Jealous  !  No,  nor  I 
can't  be  jealous;  for  I  must  not  love  you.  "Therefore  don't  hope;  but 4 5 
don't  despair  neither.  Oh,  they're  coming;  I  must  fiy."—Tlic  Doubli 
Dealer,  act  ii.  sc.  v.  page  156. 


CONG  REV  E   AND    ADDISON  69 

opinion  of  his  victims.  Nothing's  new  except  their 
faces,  says  he:  "every  woman  is  the  same."  lie 
says  this  in  his  first  comedy,  which  he  wrote  lan- 
guidly *  in  illness,  when  he  was  an  "  excellent 
5  young  man."  Richelieu  at  eighty  could  have  hardly 
said  a  more  excellent  thing. 

When  he  advances  to  make  one  of  his  conquests, 
it  is  with  a  splendid  gallantry,  in  full  uniform  and 
with  the  fiddles  playing,  like  Grammont's  French 
10  dandies  attacking  the  breach  of  Lerida. 

"  Cease,  cease  to  ask  her  name,"  he  writes  of  a 
young  lady  at  the  Wells  of  Tunbridge,  whom  he 
salutes  with  a  magnificent  compliment — 

"  Cease,  cease  to  ask  her  name, 
15  The  crowned  Muse's  noblest  theme. 

Whose  glory  by  immortal  fame 

Shall  only  sounded  be. 
But  if  you  long  to  know, 
Then  look  round  yonder  dazzling  row: 
20  Who  most  does  like  an  angel  show, 

You  may  be  sure  'tis  she." 

Here  are  lines  about  another  beauty,  who  perhaps 
was  not  so  well  pleased  at  the  poet's  manner  of 
celebrating  her — 

^5      "  When  Lesbia  first  I  saw,  so  heavenly  fair, 

With  eyes  so  bright  and  with  that  awful  air, 
I  thought  my  heart  which  durst  so  high  aspire 
As  bold  as  his  who  snatched  celestial  fire. 

*  "  There  seems  to  be  a  strange  affectation  in  authors  of  appearing 
30 to  have   done  everything  by  chance.     The  Old  Bachelor  was   written 
for  amusement  in  the  languor  of  convalescence.     Yet  it  is  apparently 
composed   with    great    elaborateness    of   dialogue    and    incessant    am- 
bition of  wit." — Johnson:    Lives  of  the  Poets. 


^0  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

But  soon  as  e'er  the  beauteous  idiot  spoke, 

Forth  from  her  coral  lips  such  folly  broke: 

Like  balm  the  trickling  nonsense  heal'd  my  wound, 

And  what  her  eyes  enthralled,  her  tongue  unbound." 

Amoret  is  a  cleverer  woman  than  the  lovely  Lesbia,  5 
but  the  poet  does  not  seem  to  respect  one  much 
more  than  the  other;    and  describes  both  with  ex- 
quisite satirical  humour — 

■   "Fair  Amoret  is  gone  astray: 

Pursue   and   seek  her,   every  lover.  'to 

I'll  tell  the  signs  by  which  you  may 
The  wandering  shepherdess  discover. 

Coquet  and  coy  at  once  her  air, 

Both  studied,  though  both  seemed  neglected; 
Careless  she  is  with  artful  care,  '5 

Affecting  to  seem  unaffected. 

With  skill  her  eyes  dart  every  glance, 

Yet  change  so  soon  you'd  ne'er  suspect  them; 

For  she'd  persuade  they  wound  by  chance, 
Though  certain  aim  and  art  direct  them.  20 

She  likes  herself,  yet  others  hates, 
For  that  which  in  herself  she  prizes; 

And,  while  she  laughs  at  them,  forgets 
She  is  the  thing  that  she  despises." 

What  could  Amoret  have  done  to  bring  down  stich  25 
shafts  of  ridicule  upon  her?  Could  she  have  re- 
sisted the  irresistible  Mr.  Congreve?  Could  any- 
body? Could  Sabina,  when  she  woke  and  heard 
such  a  bard  singing  under  her  window?  "  See,"  he 
writes — 

"  See  !    see,  she  wakes— Sabina  wakes  !  3° 

And  now  the  sun  begins  to  rise, 


CONG  RE  VE   AND    ADDISON  7 1 

Less  glorious  is  the  morn,  that  breaks 

From  his  bright  beams,  than  her  fair  eyes. 

With  light  united,  day  they  give; 
But  different  fates  ere  night  fulfil: 
5  How  many  by  his  warmth  will  live  ! 

How  many  will  her  coldness  kill  !  " 

Are  yoti  melted?  Don't  you  think  him  a  divine 
m'an?  If  not  touched  by  the  brilHant  Sabina,  hear 
the  devout  SeHnda: — 


10  "  Pious  Selinda  goes  to  prayers, 

If  I  but  ask  the  favour; 
And  yet  the  tender  fool's  in  tears. 
When  she  believes  I'll  leave  her: 
Would  I  were  free  from  this  restraint, 
15  Or  else  had  hopes  to  win  her: 

Would  she  could  make  of  me  a  saint, 
Or  I  of  her  a  sinner  !  " 


What  a  conquering  air  there  is  about  these! 
What  an  irresistible  Mr.  Congreve  it  is!    Sinner! 

2oof  course  he  will  be  a  sinner,  the  delightful  rascal! 
Win  her!  of  course  he  will  win  her,  the  victorious 
rogue!  He  knows  he  will:  he  must — with  such  a 
grace,  with  such  a  fashion,  with  such  a  splendid 
embroidered   suit.     You   see  him   with   red-heeled 

25  shoes  deliciously  turned  out,  passing  a  fair  jewelled 
hand  through  his  dishevelled  periwig,  and  deliver- 
ing a  killing  ogle  along  with  his  scented  billet.  And 
Sabina?  What  a  comparison  that  is  between  the 
nymph  and  the  sun!     The  sun  gives  Sabina  the 

30  pas,  and  does  not  venture  to  rise  before  her  lady- 
ship: the  morn's  bright  beams  are  less  glorious  than 
her  fair  eyes;   but  before  night  everybody  will  be 


72  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

frozen  by  her  glances:  everybody  but  one  lucky 
rogue  who  shall  be  nameless.  Louis  Quatorze  in  all 
his  glory  is  hardly  more  splendid  than  our  Phoebus 
Apollo  of  the  Mall  and  Spring  Gardens.* 

When  Voltaire  came  to  visit  the  great  Congreve,  5 
the  latter  rather  afifected  to  despise  his  literary 
reputation,  and  in  this  perhaps  the  great  Congreve 
was  not  far  wrong.f  A  touch  of  Steele's  tender- 
ness is  worth  all  his  finery;  a  flash  of  Swift's  light- 
ning, a  beam  of  Addison's  pure  sunshine,  and  10 
his  tawdry  playhouse  taper  is  invisible.  But  the 
ladies  loved  him,  and  he  was  undoubtedly  a  pretty 
fellow.^ 

*  "  Among  those  by  whom  it  ('  Will's  ')  was  frequented,  Southerne 
and  Congreve  were  principally  distinguished  by  Dryden's  friend  15 
ship.  .  .  .  But  Congreve  seems  to  have  gained  yet  farther  than 
Southerne  upon  Dryden's  friendship.  He  was  introduced  to  him 
by  his  first  play,  the  celebrated  Old  Bachelor,  being  put  into  the 
poet's  hands  to  be  revised.  Dryden,  after  making  a  few  alterations 
to  fit  it  for  the  stage,  returned  it  to  the  author  with  the  high  and  20 
just  commendation,  that  it  was  the  best  first  play  he  had  ever  seen."— 
Scott's  Dryden,  vol.  i.  p.  370. 

t  It  was  in  Surrey  Street,  Strand   (where  he  afterwards  died),  that 
Voltaire  visited   him,  in  the  decline  of  his  life. 

The  anecdote  relating  to  his  saying  that  he  wished  "to  be  visited  25 
on  no  other  footing  than  as  a  gentleman  who  led  a  life  of  plainness 
and  simplicity,"  is  common  to  all  writers  on  the  subject  of  Con- 
greve, and  appears  in  the  English  version  of  Voltaire's  Letters  con- 
cerning the  English  Nation,  published  in  London,  1733,  as  also  in 
Goldsmith's  Memoir  of  Voltaire.  But  it  is  worthy  of  remark,  that  3^ 
it  does  not  appear  in  the  text  of  the  same  Letters  in  the  edition  of 
Voltaire's  CEuvrcs  Completes  in  the  "  Pantheon  Litteraire."  Vol.  v. 
of  his  works.     (Paris,   1837.) 

"  Celui  de  tons  les  Anglais  qui  a  porte  le  plus  loin  la  gloire  du 
theatre  comique  est  feu  M.  Congreve.  II  n'a  fait  que  peu  de  pieces,  35 
tiTais  toutes  sont  excellentes  dans  leur  genre.  .  .  .  Vous  y  voyez 
partout  le  langage  des  honnetes  gens  avec  des  actions  de  fripon; 
ce  qui  prouve  qu'il  connaissait  bien  monde,  et  qu'il  vivait  dans 
ce  qu'on  appellc  la  bonne  compagnic."- — Voltaire:  Lcttrcs  sur  les 
Anglais.     Lcttre  XIX.  4U 

J  On    the    death    of    Queen    Mary    he    published    a    Pastoral — Thf 


CONGREVE   AND    ADDISON  75 

We  have  seen  in  Swift  a  humourous  philo!  biog- 
whose  truth  frightens  one,  and  whose  lau^  the 
makes  one  melancholy.    We  have  had  in  Congr>.be 

icl 

Mourning  Muse  of  Alexis.     Alexis   and   Menalcas   sing   alternately    ,^ 
5  the  orthodox  way.     The  Queen  is  called  Pastora 

"  I  mourn  Pastora  dead,  let  Albion  mourn, 
And  sable  clouds  her  chalky  cliffs  adorn," 

says  Alexis.     Among  other  phenomena,  we  learn  that^ 

"  With  their  sharp  nails  themselves  the  Satyrs  wound, 
lO     And  tug  their  shaggy  beards,   and  bite  with   grief  the  ground  "— 

(a  degree  of  sensibility  not  always  found  in  the  Satyrs  of  that 
period).  ...  It  continues — 

"  Lord  of  these  woods  and  wide  extended  plains, 
Stretch'd  on  the  ground  and  close  to  earth  his  face 
^5  Scalding  with  tears  the  already  faded  grass. 

To  dust  must  all  that  Heavenly  beauty  come  ? 
And  must  Pastora  moulder  in  the  tomb  ? 
Ah  Death  !    more  fierce  and  unrelenting  far 
Than  wildest  wolves  or  savage  tigers  are  ! 
20  With  lambs  and  sheep  their  hungers  are  appeased. 

But  ravenous  Death  the  shepherdess  has  seized." 

This  statement  that  a  wolf  eats  but  a  sheep,  whilst  Death  eats  a 
shepherdess— that  figure  of  the  "  Great  Shepherd  "  lying  speechless 
on  his  stomach,  in  a  state  of  despair  which  neither  winds  nor  floods 

25  nor  air  can  exhibit— are  to  be  remembered  in  poetry  surely;  and 
this  style  was  admired  in  its  time  by  the  admirers  of  the  great 
Congreve  ! 

In    the    Tears  of  Amaryllis   for  Amyntas   (the   young    Lord    Bland- 
ford,   the  great   Duke  of   Marlborough's   only  son),   Amaryllis  repre- 

30  sents  Sarah  Duchess  ! 

The  tigers  and  wolves,  nature  and  motion,  rivers  and  echoes,  come 
into  work  here  again.     At  the  sight  of  her  grief— 

"  Tigers  and  wolves  their  wonted  rage  forego. 
And  dumb  distress  and  new  compassion  show, 
35  Nature  herself  attentive  silence  kept. 

And  motion  seemed  suspended  while  she  wept  !  " 

And  Pope  dedicated  the  Iliad  to  the  author  of  these  lines— and 
Dryden  wrote  to  him  in  his  great  hand: — 


72  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

frozen  onrous  observer  of  another  school,  to  whom 
rogn^orld  seems  to  have  no  morals  at  all,  and  whose 
hi^astly  doctrine  seems  to  be  that  we  should 
-'^rt,  drink,  and  be  merry  when  we  can,  and  go  to 
-he  deuce  (if  there  be  a  deuce)  when  the  time  5 
comes.  We  come  now  to  a  humour  that  flows  from 
{juite  a  different  heart  and  spirit — a  wit  that  makes 
us  laugh  and  leaves  us  good  and  happy;  to  one  of 
the  kindest  benefactors  that  society  has  ever  had; 
and  I  believe  you  have  divined  already  that  I  am  lo 
about  to  mention  Addison's  honoured  name. 


"  Time,  place,  and  action  may  with  pains  be  wrought, 
But  Genius  must  be  born  and  never  can  be  taught. 
This  is  your  portion,  this  your  native  store; 

Heaven,  that  but  once  was  prodigal  before,  ,- 

To  Shakespeare  gave  as  much,  she  could  not  give  him  more. 

Maintain  your  Post:    that's  all  the  fame  you  need. 
For  'tis  impossible  you  should  proceed; 
Already  I  am  worn  with  cares  and  age, 

And  just  abandoning  th'  ungrateful  sta^e:  20 

Unprofitably  kept  at  Heaven's  expence, 
I  live  a  Rent-charge  upon   Providence: 
But  you,  whom  every  Muse  and  Grace  adorn, 
Whom   I  foresee  to  better  fortune  born. 

Be  kind  to  my  remains,  and  oh  !    defend  25 

Against   your  Judgment  your   departed   Friend  ! 
Let  not  the  insulting  Foe  my  Fame  pursue; 
But  shade  those  Lawrels  which  descend  to  You: 
And  take  for  Tribute  what  these  Lines  express; 
You  merit  more,  nor  could  my  Love  do  less."  30 

This  is  a  very  different  manner  of  welcome  to  that  of  our  own  day. 
In  Shadwell,  Higgons,  Congreve,  and  the  comic  authors  of  their 
time,  when  gentlemen  meet  they  fall  into  each  other's  arms,  with 
"  Jack,  Jack,  I  must  buss  thee;  "  or,  "  Fore  George,  Harry,  I  must 
kiss  thee,  lad."  And  in  a  similar  manner  the  poets  saluted  their  35 
brethren.  Literary  gentlemen  do  not  kiss  now;  I  wonder  if  they 
love  each  other  better  ? 

Steele    calls    Congreve    "Great    Sir"    and    "Great   Author";     says 
"  Well-dressed    barbarians    knew    his    awful    name,"    and    addresses 
him   as   if   he   were   a   prince;     and   speaks   of  Fastora  as   one   of   the  4° 
most  famous   tragic   compositions. 


CONG  RE  VE  AND    ADDISON  75 

From  reading  over  his  writings,  and  the  biog- 
raphies which  we  have  of  him,  amongst  which  the 
famous  article  in  the  Edinburgh  Rcviczu  *  may  be 
cited  as  a  magnificent  statue  of  the  great  writer  and 
5moraHst  of  the  last  age,  raised  by  the  love  and  the 
marvellous  skill  and  genius  of  one  of  the  most  il- 
lustrious artists  of  our  own:  looking  at  that  calm 
fair  face,  and  clear  countenance — those  chiselled  fea- 
tures pure  and  cold,  I  can't  but  fancy  that  this  great 

10  man — in  this  respect,  like  him  of  whom  we  spoke 
in  the  last  lecture — was  also  one  of  the  lonely  ones 
of  the  world.  Such  men  have  very  few  equals,  and 
they  don't  herd  with  those.  It  is  in  the  nature  of 
such  lords  of  intellect  to  be  solitary — they  are  in  the 

15  world,  but  not  of  it;  and  our  minor  struggles, 
brawls,  successes,  pass  under  them. 

Kind,  just,  serene,  impartial,  his  fortitude  not 
tried  beyond  easy  endurance,  his  affections  not 
much  used,  for  his  books  were  his  family,  and  his 

20  society    was    in    public;    admirably    wiser,    wittier, 

*  "  To  Addison  himself  we  are  bound  by  a  sentiment  as  much 
like  affection  as  any  sentiment  can  be  which  is  inspired  by  one 
who  has  been  sleeping  a  hundred  and  twenty  years  in  Westminster 
Abbey.  .  .  .  After  full  inquiry  and  impartial  reflection  we  have  long 

25  been  convinced  that  he  deserved  as  much  love  and  esteem  as  can 
justly  be  claimed  by  any  of  our  infirm  and  erring  race." — 
Macaulay. 

"  Many  who  praise  virtue  do  no  more  than  praise  it.  Yet  it  is? 
reasonable   to    believe   that   Addison's    profession    and   practice   were 

30  at  no  great  variance;  since,  amidst  that  storm  of  faction  in  which 
most  of  his  life  was  passed,  though  his  station  made  him  conspicu- 
ous, and  his  activity  made  him  formidable,  the  character  given  him 
by  his  friends  was  never  contradicted  by  his  enemies.  Of  those 
with    whom    interest    or   opinion    united    him,    he   had   not   only    the 

35  esteem  but  the  kindness;  and  of  others,  whom  the  violence  of 
opposition  drove  against  him,  though  he  might  lose  the  love,  he 
retained  the  reverence." — Johnson. 


^6  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

calmer,  and  more  instructed  than  almost  every  man 
with  whom  he  met,  how  could  Addison  suffer,  de- 
sire, admire,  feel  much?  I  may  expect  a  child  to 
admire  me  for  bein^  taller  or  writing  more  cleverly 
than  she ;  but  how  can  I  ask  my  superior  to  say  that  5 
I  am  a  wonder  when  he  knows  better  than  I?  In 
Addison's  days  you  could  scarcely  show  him  a  lit- 
erary performance,  a  sermon,  or  a  poem,  or  a  piece 
of  literary  criticism,  but  he  felt  he  could  do  better. 
His  justice  must  have  made  him  indifferent.  He  10 
didn't  praise,  because  he  measured  his  compeers 
by  a  higher  standard  than  common  people  have.* 
How  was  he  who  was  so  tall  to  look  up  to  any  but 
the  loftiest  genius?  He  must  have  stooped  to  put 
himself  on  a  level  with  most  men.  By  that  pro- 15 
fusion  of  graciousness  and  smiles  with  which 
Goethe  or  Scott,  for  instance,  greeted  almost  every 
literary  beginner,  every  small  literary  adventurer 
who  came  to  his  court  and  went  away  charmed 
from  the  great  king's  audience,  and  cuddling  to  his  20 
heart  the  compliment  which  his  literary  majesty 
had  paid  him — each  of  the  two  good-natured  po- 
tentates of  letters  brought  their  star  and  riband 
into  discredit.  Everybody  had  his  majesty's  or- 
ders. Everybody  had  his  majesty's  cheap  portrait, 25 
on  a  box  surrounded  by  diamonds  worth  twopence 
apiece.  A  very  great  and  just  and  wise  man  ought 
not  to  praise  indiscriminately,  but  give  his  idea  of 

* "  Addison   was   perfect   good   company  with   intimates,   and   had 
something  more  charming  in  his  conversation  than   I   ever  knew  in  3° 
any  other  man;    but  with  any  mixture  of  strangers,   and   sometimes 
only  with  one,  he  seemed  to  preserve  his  dignity  much,  with  a  stiflf 
sort  of  silence." — Pope.    Spcnce's  Anecdotes. 


CONGREVE    AND    ADDISON  77 

the  truth.  Addison  praises  the  ingenious  Mr. 
Pinkethman:  Addison  praises  the  ingenious  Mr, 
Doggett,  the  actor,  whose  benefit  is  coming  off 
that  night:  Addison  praises  Don  Saltero:  Addison 
5  praises  Mihon  with  all  his  heart,  bends  his  knee  and 
frankly  pays  homage  to  that  imperial  genius.*  But 
between  those  degrees  of  his  men  his  praise  is  very 
scanty.  I  don't  think  the  great  Mr.  Addison  liked 
young  Mr.  Pope,  the  Papist,  much;    I  don't  think 

lohe  abused  him.  But  when  Mr.  Addison's  men 
abused  Mr.  Pope,  I  don't  think  Addison  took  his 
pipe  out  of  his  mouth  to  contradict  them.f 

Addison's  father  was  a  clergyman  of  good  repute 
in  Wiltshire,  and  rose  in  the  Church. $    His  famous 

15  son  never  lost  his  clerical  training  and  scholastic 
gravity,  and  was  called  "  a  parson  in  a  tye-wig  "  § 

*  "  Milton's  chief  talent,  and  indeed  his  distinguishing  excellence, 
lies  in  the  sublimity  of  his  thoughts.  There  are  others  of  the 
moderns,  who  rival  him  in  every  other  part  of  poetry;  but  in  the 
20 greatness  of  his  sentiments  he  triumphs  over  all  the  poets,  both 
modern  and  ancient,  Homer  only  excepted.  It  is  impossible  for 
the  imagination  of  man  to  distend  itself  with  greater  ideas  than 
those  which  he  has  laid  together  in  his  first,  second,  and  sixth 
books." — Spectator,  No.  279. 
25  "  If  I  were  to  name  a  poet  that  is  a  perfect  master  in  all  these 
arts  of  working  on  the  imagination,  I  tliink  Milton  may  pass  for 
one." — Ibid.   No.  417. 

These  famous  papers  appeared  in   each   Saturday's  Spectator,  from 
January   19th  to   May  3rd,    1712.     Besides  his   services  to  Milton,  we 
30  may  place  those  he  did  to  Sacred  Music. 

t  "  Addison   was    very   kind   to    me   at   first,    but    my   bitter   enemy 
afterwards."— Pope.  Speflce's  Anecdotes. 

"  '  Leave  him  as   soon  as  you  can,'  said  Addison  to  me,   speaking 
of   Pope;     'he   will   certainly   play  you   some   devilish   trick   else:     he 
■35  has    an    appetite    to    satire.'  " — Lady    Wortley    Montagu.      Spence's 
Anecdotes. 

t  Lancelot   Addison,   his   father,   was   the   son    of  another    Lancelot 
Addison,    a    clergyman    in     Westmoreland.       He    became    Dean    of 
Lichfield   and   Archdeacon   of  Coventry. 
40      I  "  The    remark    of    Mandeville,    who,    when    he    had    passed    an 


78  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

in  London  afterwards  at  a  time  when  tie-wigs  were 
only  worn  by  the  laity,  and  the  fathers  of  theology 
did  not  think  it  decent  to  appear  except  in  a  full 
bottom.  Having  been  at  school  at  Salisbury,  and 
the  Charterhouse,  in  1687,  when  he  was  fifteen  5 
years  old,  he  went  to  Queen's  College,  Oxford, 
where  he  speedily  began  to  distinguish  himself  by 
the  making  of  Latin  verses.  The  beautiful  and 
fanciful  poem  of  "  The  Pigmies  and  the  Cranes,"  is 
still  read  by  lovers  of  that  sort  of  exercise;  and  10 
verses  are  extant  in  honour  of  King  William,  by 
which  it  appears  that  it  was  the  loyal  youth's  cus- 
tom to  toast  that  sovereign  in  bumpers  of  purple 
Lyseus:  many  more  works  are  in  the  Collection, 
including  one  on  the  Peace  of  Ryswick,  in  1697, 15 
which  was  so  good  that  Montague  got  him  a  pen- 
sion of  £300  a  year,  on  which  Addison  set  out  on 
his  travels. 

During  his  ten  years  at   Oxford,  Addison  had 

evening  in  his  company,  declared  that  he  was  '  a  parson  in  a  tye-  20 
wig,'  can  detract  little  from  his  character.     He  was  always  reserved 
to    strangers,    and    was    not    incited    to    uncommon    freedom    by    a 
character   like   that   of   Mandeville." — Johnson:     Li7'es   of   the   Poets. 
(Mandeville  was  the  author  of  the  famous  Fahle  of  the  Bees.) 

"Old  Jacob  Tonson   did  not  like  Mr.  Addison:    he  had  a  quarrel  25 
with  him,   and,   after  his   quitting  the   secretaryship,   used  frequently 
to   say   of  him — '  One   day   or   other   you'll    see   that   man    a   bishop— 
I'm  sure  he  looks  that  way;    and  indeed  I  ever  thought  him  a  priest 
in  his  heart.'  " — Pope.    Spence's  Anecdotes. 

"  Mr.  Addison  stayed  about  a  year  at  Blois.  He  would  rise  as  30 
early  as  between  two  and  three  in  the  height  of  summer,  'and  lie 
abed  till  between  eleven  and  twelve  in  the  depth  of  winter.  He  was 
untalkative  whilst  here,  and  often  thoughtful:  sometimes  so  lost 
in  thought,  that  I  have  come  into  his  room  and  stayed  five  minutes 
there  before  he  has  known  anything  of  it.  He  had  his  masters  35 
generally  at  supper  with  him;  kept  very  little  company  besides; 
and  had  no  amour  that  I  know  of;  and  I  think  I  should  have 
known  it  if  he  had  had  any." — Abbe  Philippeaux  of  Blois. 
S pence's  Anecdotes. 


CONGKEVE  and    ADDISON  79 

deeply  imbued  himself  with  the  Latin  poetical  lit- 
erature, and  had  these  poets  at  his  fingers'  ends 
when  he  travelled  in  Italy.*  His  patron  went  out 
of  office,  and  his  pension  was  unpaid:   and  hearing 

5  that  this  gre^t  scholar,  now  eminent  and  known  to 
the  literati  of  Europe  (the  great  Boileau,t  upon 
perusal  of  Mr.  Addison's  elegant  hexameters,  was 
first  made  aware  that  England  was  not  altogether 
a  barbarous  nation) — hearing  that  the   celebrated 

lo  Mr.  Addison,  of  Oxford,  proposed  to  travel  as  gov- 
ernor to  a  young  gentleman  on  the  grand  tour,  the 
great  Duke  of  Somerset  proposed  to  Mr.  Addison 
to  accompany  his  son.  Lord  Hertford. 

Mr.  Addison  was  delighted  to  be  of  use  to  his 

'5  Grace,  and  his  Lordship  his  Grace's  son,  and  ex- 
pressed himself  ready  to  set  forth. 

His  Grace  the  Duke  of  Somerset  now  announced 
to  one  of  the  most  famous  scholars  of  Oxford  and 
Europe  that  it  was  his  gracious  intention  to  allow 

-o  my  Lord  Hertford's  tutor  one  hundred  guineas  per 
annum.  Mr.  Addison  wrote  back  that  his  services 
were  his  Grace's,  but  he  by  no  means  found  his  ac- 
count in  the  recompense  for  them.  The  negotia- 
tion  was   broken   ofT.     They   parted   with   a   pro- 

25  fusion  of  congees  on  one  side  and  the  other.J 

*  "  His  knowledge  of  the  Latin  poets,  from  Lucretius  and  Catullus 
down  to  Claudian  and  Prudentius,  was  singularly  exact  and  pro- 
found."— Macaulay. 
t  "  Our  country  owes  it  to  him,  that  the  famous  Monsieur  Boileau 
30  first  conceived  an  opinion  of  the  English  genius  for  poetry,  by 
perusing  the  present  he  made  him  of  the  Musce  Anglican^." — 
Tickell:    Preface  to  Addison's  Works. 

t  This   proposal    was   made   to   Addison    when   he   was   in    Holland 

on  the  return  from  his  travels.     He  was  recommended  to  the  Duke 

35  by  the  bookseller,  Tonson,  for  whom  he  had   undertaken  a  transla- 


8o  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

Addison  remained  abroad  for  some  time,  living 
in  the  best  society  of  Europe.  How  could  he  do 
otherwise?  He  must  have  been  one  of  the  finest 
gentlemen  the  world  ever  saw:  at  all  moments  of 
life  serene  and  courteous,  cheerful  and  calm.*  He  5 
could  scarcely  ever  have  had  a  degrading  thought. 
He  might  have  omitted  a  virtue  or  two,  or  many, 
but  could  not  have  committed  many  faults  for 
which  he  need  blush  or  turn  pale.  When  warmed 
into  confidence,  his  conversation  appears  to  have  10 
been  so  delightful  that  the  greatest  wits  sat  rapt 
and  charmed  to  listen  to  him.  No  man  bore  poverty 
and  narrow  fortune  with  a  more  lofty  cheerfulness. 
His  letters  to  his  friends  at  this  period  of  his  life, 
when  he  had  lost  his  Government  pension  and  15 
given  up  his  college  chances,  are  full  of  courage  and 
a  gay  confidence  and  philosophy:  and  they  are 
none  the  worse  in  my  eyes,  and  I  hope  not  in  those 
of  his  last  and  greatest  biographer  (though  Mr. 
Macaulay  is  bound  to  own  and  lament  a  certain  20 
weakness  for  wine,  which  the  great  and  good 
Joseph  Addison  notoriously  possessed,  in  common 
with  countless  gentlemen  of  his  time),  because  some 
of  the  letters  are  written  when  his  honest  hand  was 
shaking  a  little  in  the  morning  after  libations  to  25 
purple  Lyaeus  over-night.    He  was  fond  of  drinking 


tion  of  Herodotus.  He  had  as  yet  published  nothing  separately, 
though  he  was  well  known  in  Oxford,  and  to  some  of  the  Whig 
nobility. 

*  "  It    was    my    fate    to    be    much    with    the    wits;     my    father   was  3" 
acquainted   with    all   of   them.     Addison   was   the  best  company  in   the 
world.     I  never  knew  anybody  that  had  so  much  wit  as  Congreve." 
— Ladv  Wortley  Montagu.     Spence's  Anecdotes. 


CONG  REV E   AND    ADDISON  8 1 

the  healths  of  his  friends:  he  writes  to  Wyche,*  of 
Hamburg,  gratefully  remembering  Wyche's  "  hoc." 
"  I  have  been  drinking  your  health  to-day  with  Sir 
Richard  Shirley,"  he  writes  to  Bathurst.  "  I  have 
5  lately  had  the  honour  to  meet  my  Lord  Effingham 
at  Amsterdam,  where  we  have  drunk  Mr.  Wood's 
health  a  hundred  times  in  excellent  champagne," 
he  writes  again.     Swift  f  describes    him  over  his 

*  Mr.  Addison  to  Mr.  Wyche. 

lO  "  Dear  Sir, — My  hand  at  present  begins  to  grow  steady  enough 
for  a  letter,  so  the  properest  use  I  can  put  it  to  is  to  thank  y«  honest 
gentleman  that  set  it  a  shaking.  I  have  had  this  morning  a 
desperate  design  in  my  head  to  attack  you  in  verse,  which  I  should 
certainly   have   done   could    I    have   found   out   a   rhyme   to   rvimmer. 

1 5  But  though  you  have  escaped  for  y*  present,  you  are  not  yet  out 
of  danger,  if  I  can  a  little  recover  my  talent  at  crambo.  I  am  sure, 
in  whate'ver  way  I  write  to  you,  it  will  be  impossible  for  me  to 
express  y*  deep  sense  I  have  of  y*  many  favours  you  have  lately 
shown    me.      I    shall    only    tell    you    that    Hambourg    has    been    the 

20  pleasantest  stage  I  have  met  with  in  my  travails.  If  any  of  my 
friends  wonder  at  me  for  living  so  long  in  that  place,  I  dare  say 
it  will  be  thought  a  very  good  excuse  when  I  tell  him  Mr.  Wyche 
was  there.  As  your  company  made  our  stay  at  Hambourg  agree- 
able, your  wine  has  given  us  all  y*   satisfaction  that  we  have  found 

25  in  our  journey  through  Westphalia.  If  drinking  your  health  will 
do  you  any  good,  you  may  expect  to  be  as  long-lived  as  Methuselah, 
or,  to  use  a  more  familiar  instance,  as  y®  oldest  hoc  in  y*  cellar. 
I  hope  y"  two  pair  of  legs  that  was  left  a  swelling  behind  us  are 
by  this  time  come  to  their  shapes  again.     I   can't  forbear  troubling 

30  you  with  my  hearty  respects  to  y*  owners  of  them,  and  desiring 
you  to  believe  me  always,  "  Dear  Sir, 

"  Yours,"  &c. 
"  To  Mr.  Wyche,  His  Majesty's  Resident  at 
"  Hambourg,  May  1703." 

35  — From  the  Life  of  Addison,  by  Miss  Aikin.     Vol.  i.  p.   146. 

t  It  is  pleasing  to  remember  that  the  relation  between  Swift  and 
Addison  was,  on  the  whole,  satisfactory  from  first  to  last.  The 
value  of  Swift's  testimony,  when  nothing  personal  inflamed  his 
vision  or  warped  his  judgment,  can  be  doubted  by  nobody. 

40  "  Sept.  10,  1710. — I  sat  till  ten  in  the  evening  with  Addison  and 
Steele. 

"  II. — Mr.  Addison  and  I  dined  together  at  his  lodgings,  and  I 
sat  with   him   part  of  this   evening. 


82  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

cups,  when  Joseph  yielded  to  a  temptation  which 
Jonathan  resisted.  Joseph  was  of  a  cold  nature, 
and  needed  perhaps  the  fire  of  wine  to  warm  his 
blood.  If  he  was  a  parson,  he  wore  a  tie-wig, 
recollect.  A  better  and  more  Christian  man  5 
scarcely  ever  breathed  than  Joseph  Addison.  If  he 
had  not  that  little  weakness  for  wine — why,  we 
could  scarcely  have  found  a  fault  with  him,  and 
could  not  have  liked  him  as  we  do.*  • 

At   thirty-three  years  of  age,   this  most   distin-  lo 
guished  wit,  scholar,  and  gentleman  was  without  a 
profession  and  an  income.    His  book  of  "  Travels  " 
had  failed :   his  "  Dialogues  on  Medals  "  f  had  had 

"  i8. — To-day  I   dined  with   Mr.   Stratford  at   Mr.   Addison's  retire- 
ment near  Chelsea.  ...  I  will  get  what  good  offices  I  can  from  Air.  jc 
Addison. 

"  -27. — To-day    all    our    company    dined    at    W'ill    Frankland's,    with 
Steele  and  Addison,  too. 

"  29.— I   dined   with   Mr.   Addison,"   &c.— Journal  to  Stella. 

Addison    inscribed    a    presentation    copy    of   his    Travels    "  To    Dr.  20 
Jonathan    Swift,    the    most    agreeable   companion,    the    truest    friend, 
and  the  greatest  genius  of  his  age."— (Scott.     From  the  information 
of  Mr.   Theophilus  Swift.) 

"  Mr.   Addison,  who  goes  over  first   secretary,   is  a  most  excellent 
person;     and    being    my    most    intimate    friend,    I    shall    use    all    my 25 
credit    to    set    him    right    in    his    notions    of    persons    and    things." — 
Letters. 

"  I  examine  my  heart,  and  can  find  no  other  reason  why  I  write 
to  you   now,  besides  that  great  love  and  esteem   I   have  always  had 
for   you.      I    have    nothing   to    ask    you    either    for   my    friend    or   for  30 
myself."— Swift   to   Addison    (1717).      Scott's   Swift.     Vol.    xix.    p. 
274. 

Political    differences    only    dulled    for    a   while    their    friendly    com- 
munications.     Time    renewed    them:     and    Tickell    enjoyed    Swift's 
friendship   as  a  legacy  from  the  man  with   whose  memory  his  is   so 35 
honourably   connected. 

*"  Addison   usually   studied   all   the   morning;     then   met  his   party 
at   Button's;     dined   there,   and   stayed   five   or   six   hours,   and   some- 
times  far   into   the   night.     I   was   of  the   company  for  about  a   year, 
but  found  it  too  much  for  me:    it  hurt  my  health,  and  so  I  quitted40 
it." — Pope.     Sfefice's  Anecdotes. 

t  The    Dialogues    on    Medals    only    appeared    posthumously.      The 


CONGREVE   AND    ADDISON  83 

no  particular  success:  his  Latin  verses,  even  though 
reported  the  best  since  Virgil,  or  Statins  at  any  rate, 
had  not  brought  him  a  Government  place,  and  Ad- 
dison was  living  up  three  shabby  pair  of  stairs  in 
5  the  Haymarket  (in  a  poverty  over  which  old  Samuel 
Johnson  rather  chuckles),  when  in  these  shabby 
rooms  an  emissary  from  Government  and  Fortune 
came  and  found  him.*  A  poem  was  wanted  about 
the  Duke  of  Marlborough's  victory  of  Blenheim. 

10  Would  Mr.  Addison  write  one?  Mr.  Boyle,  after- 
wards Lord  Carleton,  took  back  the  reply  to  the 
Lord  Treasurer  Godolphin,  that  Mr.  Addison 
would.  When  the  poem  had  reached  a  certain 
stage,  it  was  carried  to  Godolphin;     and  the  last 

15  lines  which  he  read  were  these: — 

"  But,  O  my  Muse  !    what  numbers  wilt  thou  find 
To  sing  the  furious  troops  in  battle  join'd  ? 
Methinks  I  hear  the  drum's  tumultuous  sound 
The  victor's   shouts  and  dying  groans   confound; 

20    The  dreadful  burst  of  cannon  rend  the  skies, 
And  all  the  thunder  of  the  battle  rise. 
'Twas  then  great  Marlborough's  mighty  soul  was  pro.ved 
That,  in  the  shock  of  charging  hosts  unmoved, 
Amidst  confusion,  horror,  and  despair, 

25     Examined  all  the  dreadful  scenes  of  war: 

In  peaceful  thought  the  field  of  death  surveyed, 
To  fainting  squadrons  sent  the  timely  aid, 
Inspired  repulsed  battalions  to  engage. 
And  taught  the  doubtful  battle  where  to  rage. 

2oTravels  appeared   in    1705,   i.e.   after  the   Campaign.     It   is   announced 

in    the   Diverting   Post    of    December    2-9,    1704,    that    Mr.    Addison's 

"  long-expected  poem  "  on  the  Campaign  is  to  be  published   "  next 

week." 

*  "  When   he  returned   to   England    (in    1702),   with   a   meanness   of 

35  appearance  which  gave  testimony  of  the  difficulties  to  which  he  had 
been  redticed,  he  found  his  old  patrons  out  of  power,  and  was, 
therefore,  for  a  time,  at  full  leisure  for  the  cultivation  of  his  mind." 
— ^Johnson:    Lives  of  the  Poets. 


84  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

So  when  an  angel,  by  divine  command, 

With  rising  tempests  shakes  a  guilty  land 

(Such  as  of  late  o'er  pale  Britannia  passed). 

Calm  and  serene  he  drives  the  furious  blast; 

And,  pleased  the  Almighty's  orders  to  perform,  5 

Rides  in  the  whirlwind  and  directs  the  storm." 

Addison  left  off  at  a  good  moment.  That  simile 
was  pronounced  to  be  of  the  greatest  ever  produced 
in  poetry.  That  angel,  that  good  angel,  flew  ofif 
with  Mr.  Addison,  and  landed  him  in  the  place  of  lo 
Commissioner  of  Appeals — vice  Mr.  Locke  provi- 
dentially promoted.  In  the  following  year  Mr.  Ad- 
dison went  to  Hanover  with  Lord  Halifax,  and  the 
year  after  was  made  Under-Secretary  of  State.  O 
angel  visits!  you  come  "few  and  far  between"  toi5 
literary  gentlemen's  lodgings!  Your  wings  seldom 
quiver  at  second-floor  windows  now!  * 

You  laugh?    You  think  it  is  in  the  power  of  few 
writers  nowadays  to  call  up  such  an  angel?    Well, 
perhaps  not;    but  permit  us  to  comfort  ourselves  20 
by  pointing  out  that  there  are  in  the  poem  of  the 

*  [The    famous    story    in    the    text,    which    has    been    generally    ac- 
cepted, is  probably  inaccurate.     It  was  first  told  in  1732  by  Addison's 
cousin,  Eustace  Budgell,  then  ruined  and  half  sane,  who  was  trying 
to    puff    himself    by    professing    familiar    knowledge    of   his    eminent  25 
relation.     The   circumstantiality   of   the    story   is   suspicious;     Godol- 
phin    was    the    last    man    to    give    preferment    to   a   poet    in    the   way 
described,    and   Addison   was   not   in   the   position   implied.     He   had 
strong    claims    upon    Halifax,    his    original    patron.      When    Halifax 
lost   office,   Addison's   pension   had   ceased.     Halifax  was   now   being  30 
courted   by   Godolphin,   and   could    make   an   effective   application   on     - 
behalf   of   his    client.      This    and    not    the    simile    of    the    angel,    was 
probably    at    the    bottom    of    Addison's    preferment.      It    has    lately 
appeared,   from   the   publication   of   Hearne's   diaries   by   the    Oxford 
Historical    Society,    that,    in    December    1705,    it    was    reported    that  33 
Addison  was  to  marry  the  Countess  of  Warwick.     The  marriage  was 
delayed  for  eleven  years;    but  it  is  clear  that  Addison  had  powedul 
friends  at  this  time.] 


CONG R EVE  AND  ADDISON  05 

"  Campaign  "  some  as  bad  lines  as  heart  can  desire; 
and  to  hint  that  Mr.  Addison  did  very  wisely  in  not 
going  further  with  my  Lord  Godolphin  than  that 
angelical  simile.  Do  allow  me,  just  for  a  little 
5  harmless  mischief,  to  read  you  some  of  the  lines 
which  follow.  Here  is  the  interview  between  the 
Duke  and  the  King  of  the  Romans  after  the  bat- 
tle:— 

"  Austria's  young  monarch,  whose  imperial  sway 
lo  Sceptres  and  thrones  are  destined  to  obey, 

Whose  boasted  ancestry  so  high  extends 
That  in  the  Pagan  Gods  his  lineage  ends, 
Comes  from  afar,  in  gratitude  to  own 
The  great  supporter  of  his  father's  throne. 
15  What  tides  of  glory  to  his  bosom  ran 

Clasped  in  th'  embraces  of  the  godlike  man  ! 
How  were  his  eyes  with  pleasing  wonder  fixt. 
To  see  such  fire  with  so  much  sweetness  mixt  ! 
Such  easy  greatness,  such  a  graceful  port, 
20  So  turned  and  finished  for  the  camp  or  court  !  " 

How  many  fourth-form  boys  at  Mr.  Addison's 
school  of  Charterhouse  could  write  as  well  as  that 
now?  The  "  Campaign  "  has  blunders,  triumphant 
as  it  was;  and  weak  points  like  all  campaigns.* 
25  In  the  year  1713  "  Cato  "  came  out.  Swift  has 
left  a  description  of  the  first  night  of  the  perform- 
ance. All  the  laurels  of  Europe  were  scarcely  suffi- 
cient  for    the    author    of    this    prodigious    poem.f 

*  "  Mr.   Addison  wrote  very  fluently;    but  he  was   sometimes  very 

30slow   and    scrupulous   in    jorrecting.      He   would    show   his   verses   to 

several    friends;     and    would    alter    almost    everything    that    any    of 

them  hinted  at  as  wrong.     He  seemed  to  be  too  diffident  of  himself; 

and  too   much   concerned  about   his   character   as  a   poet;     or   (as  he 

worded  it)   too  solicitous  for  that  kind  of  praise  which,   God  knows, 

35  is  but  a  very  little  matter  after  all  !  "—Pope.     Spences  Anecdotes. 

t  "  As  to   poetical  affairs,"   says   Pope  in   1713,   "  I  am  content  at 


86  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

Laudations  of  Whig  and  Tory  chiefs,  popular  ova- 
tions, complimentary  garlands  from  literary  men, 

present  to  be  a  bare  looker-on.  .  .  .  Cato  was  not  so  much  the  won- 
der of  Rome  in   his  days,  as  he  is  of  Britain  in  ours;     and  though 
all   the  foolish   industry   possible  has  been   used  to   make  it  thought    5 
a  party  play,  yet  what  the  author  once  said  of  another  may  the  most 
properly  in  the  world  be  applied  to  him  on  this  occasion: — 

"'Envy  itself  is  dumb — in  wonder  lost; 

And  factions  strive  who   shall  applaud   him   most.' 

"  The  numerous  and  violent  claps  of  the  Whig  party  on  the  one  ro 
side  of  the  theatre  were  echoed  back  by  the  Tories  on  the  other; 
while  the  author  sweated  behind  the  scenes  with  concern  to  find 
their  applause  proceeding  more  from  the  hand  than  the  head.  ,  .  . 
I  believe  you  have  heard  that,  after  all  the  applauses  of  the  opposite 
faction,  my  Lord  Bolingbroke  sent  for  Booth,  who  played  Cato,  15 
into  the  box,  and  presented  him  with  fifty  guineas  in  acknowledg- 
ment (as  he  expressed  it)  for  defending  the  cause  of  liberty  so 
well  against  a  perpetual  dictator." — Pope's  Letters  to  Sir  W.  Trum- 
bull. 

Cato  ran   for   thirty-five   nights   without    interruption.      Pope   wrote 
the  Prologue,  and  Garth  the  Epilogue.  20 

It  is  worth  noticing  how  many  things   in   Cato  keep   their  ground 
as  habitual  quotations;    e.g. — 

"...  big  with  the  fate 
Of  Cato  and  of  Rome." 

or 
"  'Tis  not  in  mortals  to  command  success;  "-^ 

But  we'll  do  more,  Sempronius,  we'll  deserve  it." 

"  Blesses  his  stars,  and  thinks  it  luxury." 

"  I  think  the  Romans  call  it  Stoicism." 

"  My  voice  is  still  for  war." 

"  When  vice  prevails,  and  impious  men  bear  sway,  3^ 

The  post  of  honour  is  a  private  station." 

Not  to  mention — 

"  The  woman  who  deliberates  is  lost." 

And  the  eternal — 

"  Plato,  thou  reasonest  well,"  •'^ 

which  avenges,  perhaps,  on  the  public  their  neglect  of  the  play  1 


CONGREVE   AND    ADDISON  8/ 

translations  in  all  languages,  delight  and  homage 
from  all — save  from  John  Dennis  in  a  minority  of 
one.  Mr.  Addison  was  called  the  "  great  Mr.  Addi- 
son "  after  this.  The  Coffee-house  Senate  saluted 
shim  Divus:  it  was  heresy  to  question  that  decree. 
Meanwhile  he  was  writing  political  papers  and 
advancing  in  the  political  profession.  He  went 
Secretary  to  Ireland.  He  was  appointed  Secretary 
of    State    in  1717.     And  letters  of  his  are  extant, 

10  bearing  date  some  year  or  two  before,  and  written 
to  young  Lord  Warwick,  in  which  he  addresses 
him  as  "  my  dearest  Lord,"  and  asks  affectionately 
about  his  studies,  and  writes  very  prettily  about 
nightingales  and  birds'-nests,  which  he  has  found 

15  at  Fulham  for  his  Lordship.  Those  nightingales 
were  intended  to  warble  in  the  ear  of  Lord  War- 
wick's mamma.  Addison  married  her  Ladyship  in 
1716;  and  died  at  Holland  House  three  years  after 
that  splendid  but  dismal  union.* 

20  *  "  The  lady  was  persuaded  to  marry  him  on  terms  much  like 
those  on  which  a  Turkish  princess  is  espoused — to  whom  the  Sultan  is 
reported  to  pronounce,  '  Daughter,  I  give  thee  this  man  for  thy  slave.' 
The  marriage,  if  uncontradicted  report  can  be  credited,  made  no  addi- 
tion   to    his    happiness;     it    neither    found    them,    nor    made    them, 

25  equal.  .  .  .  Rowe's  ballad  of  '  Tire  Despairing  Shepherd  '  is  said 
to  have  been  written,  either  before  or  after  marriage,  upon  this 
memorable  pair." — Dr.  Johnson. 

"  I   received  the  news  of  Mr.   Addison's   being  declared   Secretary 
of  State  with  the  less  surprise,  in  that  I  knew  that  post  was  almost 

30  ofifered  to  him  before.  At  that  time  he  declined  it,  and  I  really 
believe  that  he  would  have  done  well  to  have  declined  it  now.  Such 
a  post  as  that,  and  such  a  wife  as  the  Countess,  do  not  seem  to  be, 
in  prudence,  eligible  for  a  inan  that  is  asthmatic,  and  we  m.ay  see 
the    day    when    he    will    be    heartily    glad    to    resign    them    both." — 

35  Lady  Wortley  Montagu  to  Pope:  Works,  Lord  IVIianicliffe's 
edit.,  vol.  ii.  p.   iii. 

The    issue    of   this    marriage    was    a    daughter,    Charlotte    Addison, 
who   inherited,    on    her   mother's    death,    the   estate   of   Bilton,    near 


88  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

But  it  is  not  for  his  reputation  as  the  great  author 
of  "  Cato  "  and  the  "  Campaign,"  or  for  his  merits 
as  Secretary  of  State,  or  for  his  rank  and  high  dis- 
tinction as  my  Lady  Warwick's  husband,  or  for  his 
eminence  as  an  Examiner  of  pohtical  questions  on  5 
the  Whig  side,  or  a  Guardian  of  British  hberties, 
that  we  admire  Joseph  Addison.  It  is  as  a  Tatler  of 
small  talk  and  a  Spectator  of  mankind,  that  we 
cherish  and  love  him,  and  owe  as  much  pleasure  to 
him  as  to  any  human  being  that  ever  wrote.  He  10 
came  in  that  artificial  age,  and  began  to  speak  with 
his  noble,  natural  voice.  He  came,  the  gentle 
satirist  who  hit  no  unfair  blow;  the  kind  judge  who 
castigated  only  in  smiling.  While  Swift  went  about, 
hanging  and  ruthless — a  literary  Jeffreys — in  Addi-J5 
son's  kind  court  only  minor  cases  were  tried;  only 
peccadilloes  and  small  sins  against  society:  only  a 
dangerous  libertinism  in  tuckers  and  hoops;*  or  a 

Rugby,  which  her  father  had  purchased.     She  was  of  weak  intellect, 
and  died,  unmarried,  at  an  advanced  age.  20 

Rowe  appears  to  have  been  faithful  to  Addison  during  his  court- 
ship, for  his  Collection  contains  "  Stanzas  to  Lady  Warwick,  on 
Mr.  Addison's  going  to  Ireland,"  in  which  her  Ladyship  is  called 
"  Chloe,"  and  Joseph  Addison  "Lycidas";  besides  the  ballad 
mentioned  by  the  Doctor,  and  which  is  entitled  "  Colin's  Com-  25 
plaint."  But  not  even  the  interest  attached  to  the  name  of  Ad- 
dison could  induce  the  reader  to  peruse  this  composition,  though 
one  stanza  may  serve  as  a  specimen: — 

"  What  though   I   have   skill   to  complain- 
Though  the  Muses  my  temples  have  crowned;  30 
What  though,  when  they  hear  my  soft  strain. 
The  virgins  sit  weeping  around. 

Ah,  Colin  !    thy  hopes  are  in  vain; 
Thy  pipe  and  thy  laurel  resign; 

Thy  false  one  inclines  to  a  swain  35 

Whose  music  is  sweeter  than  thine." 
*  One  of  the  mpst  humourous  of  these  is  the  paper  on  Hoops, 


CONG  REV E   AND    ADDISON  89 

nuisance  in  the  abuse  of  beaux'  canes  and  snuff- 
boxes. It  may  be  a  lady  is  tried  for  breaking  the 
peace  of  our  sovereign  lady  Queen  Anne,  and 
ogling  too   dangerously  from  the  side-box;    or  a 

5  which,    the    Spectator    tells    us,    particularly    pleased    his    friend    Sir 
Roger: — 

"  Mr.  Spectator, — You  have  diverted  the  town  almost  a  whole 
month  at  the  expense  of  the  country;  it  is  now  high  time  that  you 
should    give    the    country    their    revenge.      Since    your    withdrawing 

10  from  this  place,  the  fair  sex  are  run  into  great  extravagances.  Their 
petticoats,  which  began  to  heave  and  swell  before  you  left  us,  are 
now  blown  up  into  a  most  enormous  concave,  and  rise  every  day 
more  and  more;  in  short,  sir,  since  our  women  know  themselves 
to  be  out  of  the  eye  of  the  Spectator,  they  will  be  kept  within  no 

15  compass.  You  praised  them  a  little  too  soon,  for  the  modesty  of 
their  head-dresses;  for  as  the  humour  of  a  sick  person  is  often 
driven  out  of  one  limb  into  another,  their  superfluity  of  ornaments, 
instead  of  being  entirely  banished,  seems  only  fallen  from  their 
heads   upon   their  lower  parts.     What  they  have  lost  in   height  they 

20  make  up  in  breadth,  and,  contrary  to  all  rules  of  architecture, 
widen  the  foundations  at  the  same  time  that  they  shorten  the 
superstructure. 

"  The  women  give  out,  in  defence  of  these  wide  bottoms,  that 
they  are  airy  and  very  proper  for  the  season;    but  this  I  look  upon 

25  to  be  only  a  pretence  and  a  piece  of  art,  for  it  is  well  known  we 
have  not  had  a  more  moderate  summer  these  many  years,  so  that 
it  is  certain  the  heat  they  complain  of  cannot  be  in  fhe  weather; 
besides,  I  would  fain  ask  these  tender-constituted  ladies,  why  they 
should  require  more  cooling  than  their  mothers  before  them  ? 

3'-'  "  I  find  several  speculative  persons  are  of  opinion  that  our  sex 
has  of  late  years  been  very  saucy,  and  that  the  hoop-petticoat  is 
made  use  of  to  keep  us  at  a  distance.  It  is  most  certain  that  a 
woman's  honour  cannot  be  better  entrenched  than  after  this  man- 
ner,   in    circle   within    circle,    amidst    such    a   variety   of   outworks   of 

35  lines  and  circumvallation.     A  female  who  is  thus  invested  in  whale- 
bone   is    sufficiently    secured    against    the    approaches    of    an    ill-bred 
fellow,    who   might   as   well    think   of    Sir    George    Etherege's   way   of 
making  love  in  a  tub  as  in  the  midst  of  so  many  hoops. 
"  Among  these  various  conjectures,  there  are  men  of  superstitious 

40  tempers  who  look  upon  the  hoop-petticoat  as  a  kind  of  prodigy. 
Some  will  have  it  that  it  portends  the  downfall  of  the  French  king, 
and  observe,  that  the  farthingale  appeared  in  England  a  little  before 
the  ruin  of  the  Spanish  monarchy.  Others  are  of  opinion  that  it 
foretells  battle  and  bloodshed,  and  believe  it  of  the  same  prognosti- 

45  cation  as  the  tail  of  a  blazing  star.  For  my  part,  I  am  apt  to  think, 
it  is  a  sign  that  multitudes  are  coming  into  the  world  rather  than 
going  out  of  it,"  &c.  &c. — Spectator,  No.  127. 


QO  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

Templar  for  beating  the  watch,  or  breaking  Pris- 
cian's  head;  or  a  citizen's  wife  for  caring  too  much 
for  the  puppet-show,  and  too  little  for  her  husband 
and  children:  every  one  of  the  little  sinners  brought 
before  him  is  amusing,  and  he  dismisses  each  with  5 
the  pleasantest  penalties  and  the  most  charming 
words  of  admonition. 

Addison  wrote  his  papers  as  gaily  as  if  he  was 
going  out  for  a  holiday.    When  Steele's  Tatlcr  first 
began  his  prattle,  Addison,  then  in  Ireland,  caught  lo 
at  his  friend's  notion,  poured  in  paper  after  paper, 
and  contributed  the  stores  of  his  mind,  the  sweet 
fruits  of  his  reading,  the  delightful  gleanings  of  his 
daily  observation,  with  a  wonderful  profusion,  and 
as  it  seemed  an  almost  endless  fecundy.     He  was  '5 
six-and-thirty  years  old:   full  and  ripe.    He  had  not 
worked  crop  after  crop  from  his  brain,  manuring 
hastily,  sub-soiling  indifferently,  cutting  and  sow- 
ing and  cutting  again,  like  other  luckless  cultivators 
of  letters.     He  had  not  done  much  as  yet:    a  few 20 
Latin  poems — graceful  prolusions;    a  polite  book 
of  travels;  a  dissertation  on  medals,  not  very  deep; 
four  acts  of  a  tragedy,  a  great  classical  exercise; 
and  the  "  Campaign,"  a  large  prize  poem  that  won 
an  enormous  prize.     But  with  his  friend's  discov-25 
cry  of  the  "  Tatler,"  Addison's  calling  was  fovmd, 
and  the  most  delightful  talker  in  the  world  began 
to  speak.     He  does  not  go  very  deep:    let  gentle- 
men of  a  profound  genius,  critics  accustomed  to 
the  plunge  of  the  bathos,    console    themselves    by  3° 
thinking  that  he  couldn't  go  very  deep.     There  are 
no  traces  of  suffering  in  his  writing.     He  was  so 


CONGKEVE   AND    ADDISON  9 1 

good,  SO  honest,  so  healthy,  so  cheerfully  selfish,  if 
I  must  use  the  word.  There  is  no  deep  sentiment. 
I  doubt,  until  after  his  marriage,  perhaps,  whether 
he  ever  lost  his  night's  rest  or  his  day's  tranquillity 
5 about  any  woman  in  his  life;  *  whereas  poor  Dick 
Steele  had  capacity  enough  to  melt, and  to  languish, 
and  to  sigh,  and  to  cry  his  honest  old  eyes  out,  for 
a  dozen.  His  writings  do  not  show  insight  into  or 
reverence  for  the  love  of  women,  which  I  take  to 

10  be,  one  the  consequence  of  the  other.  He  walks 
about  the  world  watching  their  pretty  humours, 
fashions,  follies,  flirtations,  rivalries:  and  noting 
them  with  the  most  charming  archness.  He  sees 
them  in  public,  in  the  theafre,  or  the  assembly,  or 

IS  the  puppet-show;  or  at  the  toy-shop  higgling  for 
gloves  and  lace;  or  at  the  auction,  battling  together 
over  a  blue  porcelain  dragon,  or  a  darling  monster 
in  Japan;  or  at  church,  eyeing  the  width  of  their 
rivals'  hoops,  or  the  breadth  of  their  laces,  as  they 

2c  sweep  down  the  aisles.  Or  he  looks  out  of  his  window 
at  the  "Garter"  in  Saint  James's  Street,  at  Ardelia's 
coach,  as  she  blazes  to  the  drawing-room  with  her 
coronet  with  six  footmen;  and  remembering  that 
her  father  was  a  Turkey  merchant  in  the  City,  cal- 

25culates  how  many  sponges  went  to  purchase  her 
earring,  and  how  many  drums  of  figs  to  build  her 
coach-box;  or  he  demurely  watches  behind  a  tree 
in  Spring  Garden  as  Saccharissa  (whom  he  knows 
under  her  mask)  trips  out  of  her  chair  to  the  alley 

30  •'  "  Mr.  Addison  has  not  had  one  epithalamium  that  I  can  hear 
of,  and  must  even  be  reduced,  like  a  poorer  and  a  better  poet, 
Spenser,  to  make  his  own." — Pope's  Letters. 


92  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

where  Sir  Fopling  is  waiting.  He  sees  only  the  pub- 
He  Hfe  of  women.  Addison  was  one  of  the  most 
resolute  clubmen  of  his  day.  He  passed  many 
hours  daily  in  those  haunts.  Besides  drinking — 
which,  alas!  is  past  praying  for — you  must  know  it,  5 
he  owned,  too,  ladies,  that  he  indulged  in  that 
odious  practice  of  smoking.  Poor  fellow!  He  was 
a  man's  man,  remember.  The  only  woman  he  did 
know,  he  didn't  wTite  about.  I  take  it  there  would 
not  have  been  much  humour  in  that  story.  10 

He  likes  to  go  and  sit  in  the  smoking-room  at 
the  "Grecian,"  or  the  "Devil";  to  pace  'Change 
and  the  Mall  * — to  mingle  in  that  great  club  of  the 

*  "  I    have    observed    that    a    reader    seldom    peruses    a    book    with 
pleasure  till  he  knows  whether  the  writer  of  it  be  a  black  or  a  fair  1$ 
man,  of  mild  or  a  choleric  disposition,  married  or  a  bachelor;    with 
other   particulars   of   a   like   nature,   that   conduce   very   much   to   the 
right  understanding  of   an   author.     To   gratify   this   curiosity,   which 
is  so  natural  to  a  reader,   I   design  this  paper  and  my  next   as  pre- 
fatory   discourses    to    my    following   writings;     and    shall    give    some  20 
account  in  them  of  the  persons  that  are  engaged  in  this  work.     As 
the  chief  trouble  of  compiling,   digesting,   and  correcting  will  fall  to 
my  share,   I   must  do  myself  the  justice  to  open   the  work  with   my 
own   history.  .  .  .  There   runs   a   story   in   the   family,   that   when   my 
mother  was  gone  with  child  of  me  about  three  months,   she  dreamt  25 
that    she    was    brought    to    bed    of    a    judge.      Whether    this    might 
proceed    from    a   lawsuit   which    was    then    depending    in    the    family, 
or    my   father's    being   a   justice   of   the    peace,    I    cannot    determine; 
for   I    am    not   so   vain    as   to   think    it   presaged   any   dignity   that    I 
should  arrive  at  in  my  future  life,  though  that  was  the  interpretation  3*' 
which  the  neighbourhood  put  upon  it.     The  gravity  of  my  behaviour 
at   my  very   first   appearance   in   the   world,   and   all   the  time   that   I 
sucked,    seemed    to    favour    my    mother's    dream;     for,    as    she    Has 
often  told  me,  I  threw  away  my  rattle  before  I  was  two  months  old, 
and    would    not    make    use    of    my    coral    till    they    had    taken    away  35 
the  bells  from  it. 

"  As  for  the  rest  of  my  infancy,  there  being  nothing  in  it  re- 
markable, I  shall  pass  it  over  in  silence.  I  find  that  during  my 
nonage  I  had  the  reputation  of  a  very  sullen  youth,  but  was  always 
the  favourite  of  my  schoolmaster,  who  used  to  say  that  my  parts  ^n 
were  solid  and  would  wear  well.  I  had  not  been  long  at  the  Uni- 
ersity  before   I   distinguished  myself  by  a   most   profound   silence; 


CONGREVE  AND    ADDISON  93 

world — sitting  alone  in  it  somehow:  having  good- 
will and  kindness  for  every  single  man  and  woman 
in  it— having  need  of  some  habit  and  custom  bind- 
ing him  to  some  few;  never  doing  any  man  a  wrong 
5  (unless  it  be  a  wrong  to  hint  a  little  doubt  about 
a  man's  parts,  and  to  damn  him  with  faint  praise); 
and  so  he  looks  on  the  world  and  plays  with  the 
ceaseless  humours  of  all  of  us — laughs  the  kindest 
laugh — :points  our  neighbour's  foible  or  eccentricity 
lo  out  to  us  with  the  most  good-natured  smiling  con- 
fidence;  and  then,  turning  over  his  shoulder,  whis- 

for  during  the  space  of  eight  years,  excepting  in  the  pubHc  exer- 
cises of  the  college,  I  scarce  uttered  the  quantity  of  a  hundred 
words;     and,    indeed,    I    do   not   remember   that    I    ever    spoke   three 

15  sentences  together  in  my  whole  life.  .  .  . 

"  I  have  passed  my  latter  years  in  the  city,  where  I  am  frequently 
seen  in  most  public  places,  though  there  are  not  more  than 
half-a-dozen  of  my  select  friends  that  know  me.  .  .  .  There  is  no 
place  of  general  resort  wherein  I  do  not  often  make  my  appearance; 

2osometimes  I  am  seen  thrusting  my  head  into  a  round  of  politicians 
at  '  Will's,'  and  listening  with  great  attention  to  the  narratives  that 
are  made  in  these  little  circular  audiences.  Sometimes  I  smoke  a 
pipe  at  '  Child's,'  and  whilst  I  seem  attentive  to  nothing  but  the 
Postman,   overhear  the   conversation   of   every   table   in   the   room.     I 

25 appear  on  Tuesday  night  at  '  St.  James's  Coffee-house  ';  and  some- 
times join  the  little  committee  of  politics  in  the  inner  room,  as  one 
who  comes  to  hear  and  improve.  My  face  is  likewise  very  well 
known  at  the  '  Grecian,'  the  '  Cocoa-tree,'  and  in  the  theatres  both 
of    Drury    Lane    and    the    Haymarket.      I    have    been    taken    for    a 

30merchant  upon  the  Exchange  for  above  these  two  years;    and  some- 
times   pass   for   a   Jew    in    the   assembly    of    stock-jobbers   at    '  Jona- 
than's.'    In    short,   wherever   I    see   a   cluster   of  people,   I   mix  with 
them,  though  I  never  open  my  lips  but  in  my  own  club. 
"  Thus   I    live  in   the  world   rather   as   a   '  Spectator  '   of  mankind 

35 than  as  one  of  the  species;  by  which  means  I  have  made  myself 
a  speculative  statesman,  soldier,  merchant,  and  artizan,  without  ever 
meddling  in  any  practical  part  in  life.  I  am  very  well  versed  in 
the  theory  of  a  husband  or  a  father,  and  can  discern  the  errors  in 
the   economy,   business,   and   diversions   of  others,   better  than   those 

40who  are  engaged  in  them — as  standers-by  discover  blots  which  are 
apt  to  escape  those  who  are  in  the  game.  ...  In  short,  I  have 
acted,  in  all  the  parts  of  my  life,  as  a  looker-on,  which  is  the 
character  I  intend  to  preserve  in  this  paper." — Spectator,  No.   i. 


94  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

pers  our  foibles  to  our  neighbour.  What  would  Sir 
Roger  de  Coverley  be  without  his  follies  and  his 
charming  little  brain-cracks?  *  If  the  good  knight 
-did  not  call  out  to  the  people  sleeping  in  church, 
and  say  "  Amen  "  wath  such  a  delightful  pomposity;  5 
if  he  did  not  make  a  speech  in  the  assize-court  a 
propos  de  bottcs,  and  merely  to  show  his  dignity  to 
Mr.  Spectator:  f  if  he  did  not  mistake  Madam  Doll 
Tearsheet  for  a  lady  of  quality  in  Temple  Qarden: 
if  he  were  wiser  than  he  is:  if  he  had  not  his  hu-io 
mour  to  salt  his  life,  and  were  but  a  mere  English 
gentleman  and  game-preserver- — of  what  worth  were 
he  to  us?  We  love  him  for  his  vanities  as  much  as 
his  virtues.  What  is  ridiculous  is  delightful  in  him; 
we  are  so  fond  of  him  because  we  laugh  at  him  so.  15 
And  out  of  that  laughter,  and  out  of  that  sweet 
weakness,  and  out  of  those  harmless  eccentricities 

*  "  So  effectually,  indeed,  did  he  retort  on  vice  the  mockery  which 
had   recently   been   directed  against   virtue,   that,   since   his   time,   the 
open   violation   of  decency  has  always  been  considered,   amongst  us,  20 
the  sure   mark  of  a  fool." — Macaulay. 

t  "  The  Court  was  sat  before  Sir  Roger  came;  but,  notwithstand 
ing  all  the  justices  had  taken  their  places  upon  the  bench,  they 
made  room  for  the  old  knight  at  the  head  of  them;  who  for  his 
reputation  in  the  country  took  occasion  to  whisper  in  the  judge's  25 
ear  that  he  7vas  glad  his  Lordship  had  met  zvitli  so  much  good 
weather  in  his  circuit.  I  was  listening  to  the  proceedings  of  the 
Court  with  much  attention,  and  infinitely  pleased  with  that  great 
appearance  and  solemnity  which  so  properly  accompanies  such  a 
public  administration  of  our  laws;  when,  after  about  an  hour's  sit-  "O 
ting,  I  observed,  to  my  great  surprise,  in  the  midst  of  a  trial,  that 
my  friend  Sir  Roger  was  getting  up  to  speak.  I  was  in  some  pain 
for  him,  till  I  found  he  had  acquitted  himself  of  two  or  three 
sentences,  with  a  look  of  much  business  and  great  intrepidity. 

"  Upon  his  first  rising,  the  Court  was  hushed,  and  a  general  whisper  55 
ran  among  the  country  people  that   Sir   Roger  was  up.     The  speech 
he   made  was   so   little  to   the   purpose,   that   I    shall   not  trouble  my 
readers    with    an    account    of    it,    and    I    believe    was    not    so    much 
designed  by  the  knight  himself  to  inform  the   Court  as  to  give  him 

a   figure   in   my  eyes,   and   to   keep   up   his   credit   in   the   country." lO 

Spectator,  No.   122. 


CONG  REV E  AND   ADDISON  95 

and  follies,  and  out  of  that  touched  brain,  and  out 
of  that  honest  manhood  and  simplicity — we  get  a 
result  of  happiness,  goodness,  tenderness,  pity, 
piety;  such  as,  if  my  audience  will  think  their  read- 
Sing  and  hearing  over,  doctors  and  divines  but  sel- 
dom have  the  fortune  to  inspire.  And  why  not?  Is 
the  glory  of  Heaven  to  be  sung  only  by  gentlemen 
in  black  coats?  Must  the  truth  be  only  expounded 
in  gown  and  surplice,  and  out  of  those  two  vest- 

loments  can  nobody  preach  it?  Commend  me  to  this 
dear  preacher  without  orders — this  parson  in  the 
tie-wig.  When  this  man  looks  from  the  world, 
whose  weaknesses  he  d'escribes  so  benevolently,  up 
to  the  Heaven  which  shines  over  us  all,  I  can  hardly 

15  fancy  a  human  face  lighted  up  with  a  more  serene 
rapture:  a  human  intellect  thrilling  with  a  purer 
love  and  adoration  than  Joseph  Addison's.  Listen 
to  him:  from  your  childhood  you  have  known  the 
verses:   but  who  can  hear  their  sacred  music  with- 

20 out  love  and  awe? — 

"  Soon  as  the  evening  shades  prevail, 
The  moon  takes  up  the  wondrous  tale, 
And  nightly  to  the  listening  earth 
Repeats  the  story  of  her  birth; 

25  Whilst  all  the  stars  that  round  her  burn, 

And  all  the  planets  in  their  turn. 
Confirm  the  tidings  as  they  roll, 
And  spread  the  truth  from  pole  to  pole. 
What  though,  in  solemn  silence,  all 

30  Move  round  the  dark  terrestrial  ball; 

What  though  no  real  voice  nor  sound 
Amid  their  radiant  orbs  be  found; 
In  reason's  ear  they  all  rejoice. 
And  utter  forth  a  glorious  voice, 

35  For  ever  singing  as  they  shine, 

The  hand  that  made  us  is  divine." 


96  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

It  seems  to  me  those  verses  shine  Hke  the  stars. 
They  shine  out  of  a  great  deep  cahn.  When  he 
turns  to  Heaven,  a  Sabbath  comes  over  that  man's 
mind:  and  his  face  hghts  up  from  it  with  a  glory  of 
thanks  and  prayer.  His  sense  of  religion  stirs  5 
through  his  whole  being.  In  the  fields,  in  the  town: 
looking  at  the  birds  in  the  trees:  at  the  children  in 
the  streets:  in  the  morning  or  in  the  moonlight: 
over  his  books  in  his  own  room:  in  a  happy  party 
at  a  country  merry-making  or  a  town  assembly,  10 
good-will  and  peace  to  God's  creatures,  and  love 
and  awe  of  Him  who  made  them,  fill  his  pure  heart 
and  shine  from  his  kind  face.  If  Swift's  life  was 
the  most  wretched,  I  think  Addison's  was  one  of 
the  most  enviable.  A  life  prosperous  and  beautiful  15 
— a  calm  death — an  immense  fame  and  affection 
afterwards  for  his  happy  and  spotless  name.* 

*  "  Garth  sent  to  Addison  (of  whom  he  had  a  very  high  opinion) 
on  his  death-bed,  to  ask  him  whether  the  Christian  religion  was 
true." — Dr.  Young.    Spence's  Anecdotes.  20 

"  I  have  always  preferred  cheerfulness  to  mirth.  The  latter  I 
consider  as  an  act,  the  former  as  an  habit  of  the  mind.  Mirth  is 
short  and  transient,  cheerfulness  fixed  and  permanent.  Those  are 
often  raised  into  the  greatest  transports  of  mirth  who  are  subject 
to  the  greatest  depression  of  melancholy:  on  the  contrary,  cheer- 25 
fulness,  though  it  does  not  give  the  mind  such  an  exquisite  gladness, 
prevents  us  from  falling  into  any  depths  of  sorrow.  Mirth  is  like 
a  flash  of  lightning  that  breaks  through  a  gloom  of  clouds,  and 
glitters  for  a  moment;  cheerfulness  keeps  up  a  kind  of  daylight  in 
the  mind,  and  fills  it  with  a  steady  and  perpetual  serenity." —  3C 
Addison:    Spectator,  No.  381. 


Steele 

What  do  we  look  for  in  studying  the  history  of 
a  past  age?  Is  it  to  learn  the  pohtical  transactions 
and  characters  of  the  leading  public  men?  is  it  to 
make  ourselves  acquainted  with  the  life  and  being 

5  of  the  time?  If  we  set  out  with  the  former  grave 
purpose,  where  is  the  truth,  and  who  believes  that 
he  has  it  entire?  What  character  of  what  great  man 
is  known  to  you?  You  can  but  make  guesses  as 
to  character  more  or  less  happy.     In  common  life 

lo  don't  you  often  judge  and  misjudge  a  man's  whole 
conduct,  setting  out  from  a  wrong  impression?  The 
tone  of  a  voice,  a  word  said  in  joke,  or  a  trifle  in 
behaviour — the  cut  of  his  hair  or  the  tie  of  his 
neckcloth  may  disfigure  him  in  your  eyes,  or  poison 

isvour  good  opinion;  or  at  the  end  of  years  of  in- 
timacy it  may  be  your  closest  friend  says  some- 
thing, reveals  something  which  had  previously  been 
a  secret,  which  alters  all  your  views  about  him,  and 
shows  that  he  has  been  acting  on  quite  a  different 

20  motive  to  that  which  you  fancied  you  knew.  And 
if  it  is  so  with  those  you  know,  how  much  more 
with  those  you  don't  know?  Say,  for  example,  that 
I  want  to  understand  the  character  of  the  Duke  of 
Marlborough.     I  read  Swift's  history  of  the  times 

97 


98  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

in  which  he  took  a  part;  the  shrewdest  of  observers 
and  initiated,  one  would  think,  into  the  pohtics  of 
the  age — he  hints  to  me  that  Marlborough  was  a 
coward,  and  even  of  doubtful  military  capacity: 
he  speaks  of  Walpole  as  a  contemptible  boor,  and  5 
scarcely  mentions,  except  to  flout  it,  the  great  in- 
trigue of  the  Queen's  latter  days,  which  was  to  have 
ended  in  bringing  back  the  Pretender.  Again,  I 
read  Marlborough's  Life  by  a  copious  archdeacon, 
who  has  the  command  of  immense  papers,  of  sono-io 
rous  language,  of  what  is  called  the  best  informa- 
tion; and  I  get  little  or  no  insight  into  this  secret 
motive  which,  I  believe,  influenced  the  whole  of 
Marlborough's  career,  which  caused  his  turnings 
and  windings,  his  opportune  fidelity  and  treason,  1 5 
stopped  his  army  almost  at  Paris  gate,  and  landed 
him  finally  on  the  Hanoverian  side — the  winning 
side:  I  get,  I  say,  no  truth,  or  only  a  portion  of  it, 
in  the  narrative  of  either  writer,  and  believe  that 
Coxe's  portrait,  or  Swift's  portrait,  is  quite  unlike2o 
the  real  Churchill.  I  take  this  as  a  single  instance, 
prepared  to  be  as  sceptical  about  any  other,  and 
say  to  the  Muse  of  History,  "  O  venerable  daugh- 
ter of  Mnemosyne,  I  doubt  every  single  statement 
you  ever  made  since  your  ladyship  was  a  Muselas 
For  all  your  grave  airs  and  high  pretensions,  you 
are  not  a  whit  more  trustworthy  than  some  of  your 
lighter  sisters  on  whom  your  partisans  look  down. 
You  bid  me  listen  to  a  general's  oration  to  his  sol- 
diers: Konsense!  He  no  more  made  it  than  Tur-30 
pin  made  his  dying  speech  at  Newgate.  You  pro- 
nounce a  panegyric  on  a  hero:  I  doubt  it,  and  say 


STEELE  99 

you  flatter  outrageously.  You  utter  the  condem- 
nation of  a  loose  character:  I  doubt  it,  and  think 
you  are  prejudiced  and  take  the  side  of  the  Dons. 
You  offer  me  an  autobiography:    I  doubt  all  auto- 

5  biographies  I  ever  read;  except  those,  perhaps,  of 
Mr.  Robinson  Crusoe,  Mariner,  and  writers  of  his 
class.  These  have  no  object  in  setting  themselves 
right  with  the  public  or  their  own  consciences; 
these    have    no    motive    for    concealment    or    half- 

lo truths;  these  call  for  no  more  confidence  than  I  can 
cheerfully  give,  and  do  not  force  me  to  tax  my 
credulity  or  to  fortify  it  hy  evidence.  I  take  up  a 
volume  of  Doctor  Smollett,  or  a  volume  of  the 
Spectator,    and    say    the    fiction    carries    a    greater 

15  amount  of  truth  in  solution  than  the  volume  which 
purports  to  be  all  true.  Out  of  the  fictitious  book 
I  get  the  expression  of  the  life  of  the  time;  of  the 
manners,  of  the  movement,  the  dress,  the  pleasures, 
the  laughter,  the  ridicules  of  society — the  old  times 

20  live  again,  and  I  travel  in  the  old  country  of  Eng- 
land.   Can  the  heaviest  historian  do  more  for  me  ? 

As  we  read  in  these  delightful  volumes  of  the 
Tatler  and  Spectator  the  past  age  returns,  the  Eng- 
land of  our  ancestors  is  revivified.     The  Maypole 

25  rises  in  the  Strand  again  in  London;  the  churches 
are  thronged  with  daily  worshippers;  the  beaux  are 
gathering  in  the  cofifee-houses*  the  gentry  are  go- 
ing to  the  Drawing-room ;  the  ladies  are  thronging 
to  the  toy-shops:    the  chairmen  are  jostling  in  the 

30  streets ;  the  footmen  are  running  with  links  be- 
fore the  chariots,  or  fighting  round  the  theatre 
doors.    In  the  country  I  see  the  young  Squire  rid- 


lOO  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

ing  to  Eton  with  his  servants  behind  him,  and  Will 
Wimble,  the  friend  of  the  family,  to  see  him  safe. 
To  make  that  journey  from  the  Squire's  and  back, 
Will  is  a  week  on  horseback.    The  coach  takes  five 
days  between  London  and  Bath.     The  judges  and    5 
the  bar  ride  the  circuit.    If  my  Lady  comes  to  town 
in  her  post-chariot,  her  people  carry  pistols  to  fire 
a  salute  on  Captain  Macheath  if  he  should  appear, 
and  her  couriers  ride  ahead  to  prepare  apartments 
for  her   at   the   great   caravanserais   on   the   road;  10 
Boniface  receives  her  under  the  creaking  sign  of  the 
"  Bell  "  or  the  "  Ram,"  and  he  and  his  chamber- 
lains bow  her  up  the-gre^  stair  to  the  state  apart- 
ments, whilst  her  carriage  rumbles  into  the  court- 
yard, where  the  "  Exeter  Fly  "  is  housed  that  per- 15 
forms  the  journey  in  eight  days,  God  willing,  hav- 
ing achieved  its  daily  flight  of  twenty  miles,  and 
landed  its  passengers  for  supper  and  sleep.     The 
curate  is  taking  his  pipe  in  the  kitchen,  where  the 
Captain's  man — having  hung  up  his  master's  half-  20 
pike — is  at  his  bacon  and  eggs,  bragging  of  Ramil- 
lies  and   Malplaquet  to   the  townsfolk,   who  have 
their  club  in  the  chimney-corner.     The  Captain  is 
ogling  the  chambermaid  in  the  wooden  gallery,  or 
bribing  her  to  know  who  is  the  pretty  young  mis-  25 
tress  that  has  come  in  the  coach.    The  pack-horses 
are  in  the  great  stable,  and  the  drivers  and  ostlers 
carousing  in  the  tap.    And  in  Mrs.  Landlady's  bar, 
over  a  glass  of  strong  waters,  sits  a  gentleman  of 
military  appearance,  who  travels  with  pistols,  as  all  3° 
the  rest  of  the  world  does,  and  has  a  rattling  grey 
mare  in  the  stables  which  will  be  saddled  and  away 


STEELE  lOI 

with  its  owner  half-an-hour  before  the  "  Fly  "  sets 
out  on  its  last  day's  flight.  And  some  five  miles  on 
the  road,  as  the  "  Exeter  Fly  "  comes  jingling  and 
creaking  onwards,  it  will  suddenly  be  brought  to  a 

5  halt  bv  a  gentleman  on  a  grey  mare,  with  a  black 
vizard  on  his  face,  who  thrusts  a  long  pistol  into  the 
coach  window,  and  bids  the  company  to  hand  out 
their  purses.  ...  It  must  have  been  no  small  pleas- 
ure even  to  sit  in  the  great  kitchen  in  those  days, 

lo  and  see  the  tide  of  humankind  pass  by.  We  arrive 
at  places  now,  but  we  travel  no  more.  Addison 
talks  jocularly  of  a  difference  of  manner  and  cos- 
tume being  quite  perceivable  at  Staines,  where 
there  passed  a  young  fellow  "  with  a  very  tolerable 

15  periwig,"  thoughj  to  be  sure,  his  hat  was  out  of 
fashion,  and  had  a  Ramillies  cock.  I  would  have 
liked  to  travel  in  those  days  (being  of  that  class  of 
travellers  who  are  proverbially  pretty  easy  coram 
latronibus)  and  have  seen  my  friend  with  the  grey 

20 mare  and  the  black  vizard.  Alas!  there  always 
came  a  day  in  the  life  of  that  warrior  when  it  was 
-the  fashion  to  accompany  him  as  he  passed — with- 
out his  black  mask,  and  with  a  nosegay  in  his  hand, 
accompanied  by  halberdiers  and  attended  by   the 

25  sheriff, — in  a  carriage  without  springs,  and  a 
clergyman  jolting  beside  him,  to  a  spot  close  by 
Cumberland  Gate  and  the  Marble  Arch,  where  a 
stone  still  records  that  here  Tyburn  turnpike  stood. 
What  a  change  in  a  century;   in  a  few  years!  Within 

3" a  few  yards  of  that  gate  the  fields  began:  the  fields 
of  his  exploits,  behind  the  hedges  of  which  he 
lurked  and  robbed,    A  great  and  wealthy  city  has 


I02  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

grown  over  those  meadows.  Were  a  man  brought 
to  die  there  now,  the  windows  would  be  closed  and 
the  inhabitants  keep  their  houses  in  sickening  hor- 
ror. A  hundred  years  back,  people  crowded  to  see 
that  last  act  of  a  highwayman's  life,  and  make  jokes  5 
on  it.  Swift  laughed  at  him,  grimly  advising  him 
to  provide  a  Holland  shirt  and  white  cap  crowned 
with  a  crimson  or  black  riband  for  his  exit,  to 
mount  the  cart  cheerfully — shake  hands  with  the 
hangman,  and  so — farewell.  Gay  wrote  the  most  10 
delightful  ballads,  and  made  merry  over  the  same 
hero.  Contrast  these  with  the  writings  of  our 
present  humourists!  Compare  those  morals  and 
ours — those  manners  and  ours! 

We  can't  tell — you  would  not  bear  to  be  told — 15 
the  whole  truth  regarding  those  men  and  manners. 
You  could  no  more  sufifer  in  a  British  drawing- 
room,  under  the  reign  of  Queen  Victoria,  a  fine 
gentleman  or  fine  lady  of  Queen  Anne's  time,  or 
hear  what  they  heard  and  said,  than  you  would  re-  20 
ceive  an  ancient  Briton.     It  is  as  one  reads  about   . 
savages,  that  one  contemplates  the  wild  ways,  the 
barbarous  feasts,  the  terrific  pastimes,  of  the  men 
of  pleasure  of  that  age.     We  have  our  fine  gentle- 
men, and  our  "  fast  men  ";  permit  me  to  give  you  25 
an  idea  of  one  particularly  fast  nobleman  of  Queen 
Anne's  days,  whose  biography  has  been  preserved 
to  us  by  the  law  reporters. 

In   1691,  when  Steele  was  a  boy  at  school,  my 
Lord  Mohun  was  tried  by  his  peers  for  the  murder  30 
of  William   Mountford,  comedian.      In   "  Howell's 
State  Trials,"  the  reader  will  find  not  only  an  edi- 


STEELE  103 

fying  account  of  this  exceedingly  fast  nobleman, 
but  of  the  times  and  manners  of  those  days.  My 
Lord's  friend,  a  Captain  Hill,  smitten  with  the 
charms  of  the  beautiful  Mrs.  Bracegirdle,  and 
5  anxious  to  marry  her  at  all  hazards,  determined  to 
carry  her  ofif,  and  for  this  purpose  hired  a  hackney- 
coach  with  six  horses,  and  a  half-dozen  of  soldiers 
to  aid  him  in  the  storm.  The  coach  with  a  pair  of 
horses  (the  four  leaders  being  in  waiting  elsewhere) 

10  took  its  station  opposite  my  Lord  Craven's  house 
in  Drury  Lane,  by  which  door  Mrs.  Bracegirdle 
was  to  pass  on  her  way  from  the  theatre.  As  she 
passed  in  company  of  her  mamma  and  a  friend,  Mr. 
Page,  the  Captain  seized  her  by  the  hand,  the  sol- 

^5diers  hustled  Mr.  Page  and  attacked  him  sword  in 
hand,  and  Captain  Hill  and  his  noble  friend  en- 
deavoured to  force  Madam  Bracegirdle  into  the 
coach.  Mr.  Page  called  for  help:  the  population  of 
Drury  Lane  rose:    it  was  impossible  to  effect  the 

-•^capture;  and  bidding  the  soldiers  go  about  their 
business,  and  the  coach  to  drive  ofif.  Hill  let  go  of 
his  prey  sulkily,  and  waited  for  other  opportunities 
of  revenge.  The  man  of  whom  he  w^as  most  jealous 
was  Will  Mountford*  the  comedian;   Will  removed, 

^5  he  thought  Mrs.  Bracegirdle  might  be  his:  and  ac- 
cordingly the  Captain  and  his  Lordship  lay  that 
night  in  wait  for  Will,  and  as  he  was  coming  out  of 
a  house  in  Norfolk  Street,  while  Mohvm  engaged 
him  in  talk,  Hill,  in  the  words  of  the  Attorney- 

^  General,  made  a  pass  and  ran  him  clean  through  the 
body. 

Sixty-one  of  my  Lord's  peers  finding  him  not 


I04  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

guilty  of  murder,  while  but  fourteen  found  him 
guilty,  this  very  fast  nobleman  was  discharged :  and 
made  his  appearance  seven  years  after  in  another 
trial  for  murder — when  he,  my  Lord  Warwick,  and 
three  gentlemen  of  the  military  profession,  were  5 
concerned  in  the  fight  which  ended  in  the  death  of 
Captain  Coote. 

This  jolly  company    were    drinking  together  in 
"  Lockit's  "  at  Charing  Cross,  when  angry  words 
arose  between  Captain  Coote  and  Captain  French;  10 
whom  my  Lord  Mohun  and  my  Lord  the  Earl  of 
Warwick  *    and    Holland    endeavoured    to    pacify. 
My  Lord  Warwick  was  a  dear  friend  of  Captain 
Coote,  lent  him  iioo  to  buy  his  commission  in  the 
Guards;    once  when  the  Captain  was  arrested  for  15 
ii3  by  his  tailor,  my  Lord  lent  him  five  guineas, 
often  paid  his  reckoning  for  him,  and  showed  him 
other  oflfices  of  friendship.  On  this  evening  the  dis- 
putants, French  and  Coote,  being  separated  whilst 
they  were  upstairs,  unluckily  stopped  to  drink  ale  20 
again  at  the  bar  of  "  Lockit's.''     The  row  began 

*  The  husband  of  the  Lady  Warwick  who  married  Addison,  and  the 
father  of  the  young  Earl,  who  was  brought  to  his  stepfather's  bed 
to  see  "  how  a  Christian  could  die."  lie  was  amongst  the  wildest 
of  the  nobility  of  that  day;  and  in  the  curious  collection  of  Chap- 25 
Books  at  the  British  Museum,  I  have  seen  more  than  one  anecdote 
of  the  freaks  of  the  gay  lord.  He  was  popular  in  London,  as  such 
daring  spirits  have  been  in  our  time.  The  anccdotists  speak  very 
kindly  of  his  practical  jokes.  Mohun  was  scarcely  out  of  prison  for 
his  second  homicide,  when  he  went  on  Lord  Macclesfield's  embassy30 
to  the  Elector  of  Hanover  when  Queen  Anne  sent  the  Garter  to 
his  Highness.  The  chronicler  of  the  expedition  speaks  of  his  Lord- 
ship as  an  amiable  young  man,  who  had  been  in  bad  company, 
but  was  quite  repentant  and  reformed.  He  and  Macartney  after- 
wards murdered  the  Duke  of  Hamilton  between  them,  in  which  act  35 
Lord  Mohun  died.  This  amiable  Baron's  name  was  Charles,  and 
not  Henry,  as  a  recent  novelist  has  christened  him   (in  Esmond). 


STEELE  105 

afresh — Coote  lunged  at  French  over  the  bar,  and 
at  last  all  six  called  for  chairs,  and  went  to  Leices- 
ter Fields,  where  they  fell  to.  Their  Lordships  en- 
gaged on  the  side  of  Captain  Coote,  My  Lord  of 
5  Warwick  was  severely  wounded  in  the  hand,  Mr. 
French  also  was  stabbed,  but  honest  Captain  Coote 
got  a  couple  of  wounds — one  especially,  "  a  wound 
in  the  left  side  just  under  the  short  ribs,  and  pierc- 
ing through  the  diaphragma,"  which  did  for  Cap- 

10  tain  Coote.  Hence  the  trials  of  my  Lords  War- 
wick and  Mohun:  hence  the  assemblage  of  peers, 
the  report  of  the  transaction  in  which  these  defunct 
fast  men  still  live  for  the  observation  of  the  curioius. 
My  Lord  of  Warwick  is  brought  to  the  bar  by  the 

15  Deputy-Governor  of  the  Tower  of  London,  having 
the  axe  carried  before  him  by  the  gentleman  gaoler, 
who  stood  with  it  at  the  bar  at  the  right  hand  of  the 
prisoner,  turning  the  edge  from  him;  the  prisoner, 
at  his  approach,  making  three  bows,   one   to   his 

20  Grace  the  Lord  High  Steward,  the  other  to  the 
peers  on  each  hand;  and  his  Grace  and  the  peers 
return  the  salute.  And  besides  these  great  person- 
ages, august  in  periwigs,  and  nodding  to  the  right 
and  left,  a  host  of  the  small  come  up  out  of  the  past 

25  and  pass  before  us — the  jolly  captains  brawling  in 
the  tavern,  and  laughing  and  cursing  over  their 
cups — the  drawer  that  serves,  the  bar-girl  that 
waits,  the  bailiff  on  the  prowl,  the  chairmen  trudg- 
ing through  the  black  lampless  streets,  and  smok- 

3oing  their  pipes  by  the  railings,  wliilst  swords  are 
clashing  in  the  garden  within.  "Help  Ihere!  a 
gentleman  is  hurt!"     The  chairmen  put  up  their 


I06  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

pipes,  and  help  the  gentleman  over  the  railings, 
and  carry  him,  ghastly  and  bleeding,  to  the  Bagnio 
in  Long  Acre,  where  they  knock  up  the  surgeon — 
a  pretty  tall  gentleman :  but  that  wound  under  the 
short  ribs  has  done  for  him.  Surgeon,  lords,  cap-  5 
tains,  bailiffs,  chairmen,  and  gentleman  gaoler  with 
your  axe,  where  be  you  now?  The  gentleman  axe- 
man's head  is  off  his  o.wn  shoulders;  the  lords  and 
judges  can  wag  theirs  no  longer;  the  bailiff's  writs 
have  ceased  to  run:  the  honest  chairmen's  pipes  are  10 
put  out,  and  with  their  brawny  calves  they  have 
walked  away  into  Hades — all  is  irrecoverably  done 
for  as  Will  Mountford  or  Captain  Coote.  The  sub- 
ject of  our  night's  lecture  saw  all  these  people — 
rode  in  Captain  Coote's  company  of  the  Guards  15 
very  probably — wrote  and  sighed  for  Bracegirdle, 
went  home  tipsy  in  many  a  chair,  after  many  a  bot- 
tle, in  many  a  tavern — fled  from  many  a  bailiff. 

In  1709,  when  the  publication  of  the  Tatlcr  be- 
gan, our  great-great-grandfathers  must  have  seized  20 
upon  that  new  and  delightful  paper  with  much  such 
eagerness  as  lovers  of  light  literature  in  a  later  day 
exhibited    when    the    Waverley    novels    appeared, 
upon  which  the  public  rushed,  forsaking  that  feeble 
entertainment  of  which  the  Miss  Porters,  the  Anne  25 
of   Swanseas,   axid   worthy   Mrs.    Radcliffe   herself, 
with  her  dreary  castles  and  exploded  old  ghosts, 
had  had  pretty  much  the  monopoly.    I  have  looked 
over  many  of  the  comic  books  with  which  our  an- 
cestors   amused    themselves,    from    the    novels    of  3° 
Swift's  coadjutrix,  Mrs.  Manley,  the  delectable  au- 
thor of  the  "  New  Atlantis,"  to  the  facetious  pro- 


STEELE  107 

ductions  of  Tom  Durfey,  and  Tom  Brown,  and  Ned 
Ward,  writer  of  the  "  London  Spy  "  and  several 
other  volumes  of  ribaldry.  The  slang  of  the  tav- 
erns and  ordinaries,  the  wit  of  the  bagnios,  form  the 

5  strongest  part  of  the  farrago  of  which  these  libels 
are  composed.  In  the  excellent  newspaper  collec- 
tion at  the  British  Museum,  you  may  see,  besides, 
the  Craftsman  *  and  Postboy  specimens — and  queer 
specimens   they   are — of    the    higher   literature   of 

10  Queen  Anne's  time.  Here  is  an  abstract  from  a  nota- 
ble journal  bearing  date  Wednesday,  October  13th, 
1708,  and  entitled  The  British  Apollo;  or,  curious 
amusements  for  the  ingenious,  by  a  society  of  gentle- 
men.    The  British  Apollo  invited  and  professed  to 

15  answer  questions  upon  all  subjects  of  wit,  morality, 
science,  and  even  religion ;  and  two  out  of  its  four 
pages  are  filled  with  queries  and  replies  much  like 
some  of  the  oracular  penny  prints  of  the  present 
time. 

20  One  of  the  first  querists,  referring  to  the  passage 
that  a  bishop  should  be  the  husband  of  one  wife, 
argues  that  polygamy  is  justifiable  in  the  laity.  The 
society  of  gentlemen  conducting  the  British  Apollo 
are  posed  by  this  casuist,  and  promis-e  to  give  him 

25  an  answer.  Celinda  then  wishes  to  know  from  "  the 
gentleman,"  concerning  the  souls  of  the  dead, 
whether  they  shall  have  the  satisfaction  to  know 
those  whom  they  most  valued  in  this  transitory 
life.     The  gentlemen  of  the  Apollo  give  but  poor 

30  comfort  to  poor  Celinda.  They  are  inclined  to 
think  not;    for,  say  they,  since  every  inhabitant  of 

"  The  Craftsman  did  not  appear  till   1^26. 


108  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

those  regions  will  be  infinitely  dearer  than  here  are 
our  nearest  relatives — what  have  we  to  do  with  a 
partial  friendship  in  that  happy  place?  Poor  Ce- 
linda!  it  may  have  been  a  child  or  a  lover  whom 
she  had  lost,  and  was  pining  after,  when  the  oracle  5 
of  British  Apollo  gave  her  this  dismal  answer.  She 
has  solved  the  question  for  herself  by  this  time,  and 
knows  quite  as  well  as  the  society  of  gentlemen. 

From  theology  we  come  to  physics,  and  Q.  asks, 
"Why  does  hot  water  freeze  sooner  than  cold?"  lo 
Apollo  replies,  "  Hot  water  cannot  be  said  to  freeze 
sooner  than  cold;  but  water  once  heated  and  cold 
may  be  subject  to  freeze  by  the  evaporation  of  the 
spirituous  parts  of  the  water,  which  renders  it  less 
able  to  withstand  the  power  of  frosty  weather."        15 

The  next  query  is  rather  a  delicate  one.  "  You, 
Mr.  Apollo,  who  are  said  to  be  the  God  of  Wisdom, 
pray  give  us  the  reason  why  kissing  is  -so  much  in 
fashion:  what  benefit  one  receives  by  it,  and  who 
was  the  inventor,  and  you  will  oblige  Corinna."  20 
To  this  queer  demand  the  lips  of  Phoebus,  smiling, 
answer:  "  Pretty  innocent  Corinna!  Apollo  owns 
that  he  was  a  little  surprised  by  your  kissing  ques- 
tion, particularly  at  that  part  of  it  where  you  desire 
tt)  know  the  benefit  you  receive  by  it.  Ah!  25 
madam,  had  you  a  lover,  you  would  not  come  to 
Apollo  for  a  solution;  since  there  is  no  dispute  but 
the  kisses  of  mutual  lovers  give  infinite  satisfaction. 
As  to  its  invention,  "tis  certain  nature  was  its  au- 
thor, and  it  began  with  the  first  courtship."  3^ 

After  a  column  more  of  questions,  follow  nearly 
two  pages  of  poems,  signed  by  Philander,  Armenia. 


STEELE  109 

and  the  like,  and  chiefly  on  the  tender  passion;  and 
the  paper  winds  up  with  a  letter  from  Leghorn,  an 
account  of  the  Duke  of  Marlborough  and  Prince 
Eugene  before  Lille,  and  proposals  for  publishing 

5  two  sheets  on  the  present  state  of  Ethiopia,  by  Mr. 
Hill:  all  of  which  is  printed  for  the  authors  by  J. 
Mayo,  at  the  Printing  Press  against  Water  Lane 
in  Fleet  Street.  What  a  change  it  must  have  been 
—how  Apollo's  oracles  must  have  been  struck  dumb 

10 — when  the  Taller  appeared,  and  scholars,  gentle- 
men, men  of  the  world,  men  of  genius,  began  to 
speak ! 

Shortly  before  the  Boyne  was  fought,  and  young 
Swift  had  begun  to  make  acquaintance  with  Eng- 

islish  Court  manners  and  English  servitude,  in  Sir 
William  Temple's  family,  another  Irish  youth  was 
brought  to  learn  his  humanities  at  the  old  school 
of  Charterhouse,  near  Smithfield;  to  which  founda- 
tion he  had  been  appointed  by  James,  Duke  of  Or- 

20  mond,  a  governor  of  the  House,  and  a  patron  of 
the  lad's  family.  The  boy  was  an  orphan,  and  de- 
scribed, twenty  years  after,  with  a  sweet  pathos  and 
simplicity,  some  of  the  earliest  recollections  of  a  life 
which  was  destined  to  be  chequered  by  a  strange 

25  variety  of  good  and  evil  fortune. 

I  am  afraid  no  good  report  could  be  given  by 
his  masters  and  ushers  of  that  thick-set,  square- 
faced,  black-eyed,  soft-hearted  little  Irish  boy.  He 
was  very  idle.    He  was  whipped  deservedly  a  great 

30  number  of  times.  Though  he  had  very  good  parts 
of  his  own,  he  got  other  boys  to  do  his  lessons  for 
him,  and  only  took  just  as  much  trouble  as  should 


no  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

enable  him  to  scuffle  through  his  exercises,  and  by 
good  fortune  escape  the  flogging-block.  One  hun- 
dred and  fifty  years  after,  I  have  myself  inspected, 
but  only  as  an  amateur,  that  instrument  of  righteous 
torture  still  existing,  and  in  occasional  use,  in  a  5 
secluded  private  apartment  of  the  old  Charterhouse 
School;  and  have  no  doubt  it  is  the  very  counter- 
part, if  not  the  ancient  and  interesting  machine  it- 
self, at  which  poor  Dick  Steele  submitted  himself  to 
the  tormentors.  10 

Besides  being  very  kind,  lazy,  and  good-na- 
tured, this  boy  went  invariably  into  debt  with  the 
tart- woman;  ran  out  of  bounds,  and  entered  into 
pecuniary,  or  rather  promissory  engagements  with 
the  neighbouring  lollipop  vendors  and  piemen — 15 
exhibited  an  early  fondness  and  capacity  for  drink- 
ing mum  and  sack,  and  borrowed  from  all  his  com- 
rades who  had  money  to  lend.  I  have  no  sort  of 
authority  for  the  statements  here  made  of  Steele's 
early  life;  but  if  the  child  is  father  of  the  man,  the  20 
father  of  young  Steele  of  Merton,  who  left  Oxford 
without  taking  a  degree,  and  entered  the  Life 
Guards — the  father  of  Captain  Steele  of  Lucas's 
Fusiliers,  who  got  his  company  through  the 
patronage  of  my  Lord  Cutts — the  father  of  Mr.  25 
Steele  the  Conmiissioner  of  Stamps,  the  editor  of 
the  Gazette,  the  Tatlcr,  and  Spectator,  the  expelled 
Member  of  Parliament,  and  the  author  of  the  "  Ten- 
der Husband"  and  the  "Conscious  Lovers";  if 
man  and  boy  resembled  each  other,  Dick  Steele  the  30 
schoolboy  must  have  been  one  of  the  most  gen- 
erous,   good-for-nothing,    amiable    little    creatures 


STEELE  III 

that  ever  conjugated  the  verb  tnpto,  I  beat,  tuptomai, 
I  am  whipped,  in  any  school  in  Great  Britain. 

Almost  every  gentleman  who  does  me  the  honour 
to  hear  me  v/ill  remember  that  the  very  greatest 
5  character  which  he  has  seen  in  the  course  of  his  life, 
and  the  person  to  whom  he  has  looked  up  with 
the  greatest  wonder  and  reverence,  was  the  head 
boy  at  his  school.  The  schoolmaster  himself  hardly 
inspires  such  an  awe.     The  head  boy  construes  as 

lo  well  as  the  schoolmaster  himself.  When  he  begins 
to  speak  the  hall  is  hushed,  and  every  little  boy  lis- 
tens. He  writes  off  copies  of  Latin  verses  as  me- 
lodiously as  Virgil.  He  is  good-natured,  and,  his 
own  masterpieces  achieved,  pours  out  other  copies 

15  of  verses  for  other  boys  with  an  astonishing  ease 
and  fluency;  the  idle  ones  only  trembling  lest  they 
should  be  discovered  on  giving  in  their  exercises 
and  whipped  because  their  poems  were  too  good, 
I  have  seen  great  men  in  my  time,  but  never  such 

20a  great  one  as  that  head  boy  of  my  childhood:  we 
all  thought  he  must  be  Prime  Minister,  and  I  was 
disappointed  on  meeting  him  in  after  life  to  find  he 
was  no  more  than  six  feet  high. 

Dick   Steele,   the    Charterhouse   gownboy,    con- 

25  tracted  such  an  admiration  in  the  years  of  his  child- 
hood, and  retained  it  faithfully  through  his  life. 
Through  the  school  and  through  the  world,  whith- 
ersoever his  strange  fortune  led  this  erring,  way- 
ward,  afifectionate   creature,   Joseph   Addison   was 

30  always  his  head  boy.  Addison  wrote  his  exercises. 
Addison  did  his  best  themes.  He  ran  on  Addison's 
messages;    fagged  for  him  and  blacked  his  shoes: 


112  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

to  be  in  Joe's  company  was  Dick's  greatest  pleas- 
ure; and  he  took  a  sermon  or  a  caning  from  his 
monitor  with  the  most  boundless  reverence,  ac- 
quiescence, and  affection.*  ^ 

Steele  found  Addison  a  stately  College  Don  at'  5 
Oxford,  and  himself  did  not  make  much  figure  at 
this  place.     He  wrote  a  comedy,  which,  by  the  ad- 
vice of  a  friend,  the  humble  fellow  burned  there; 
and  some  verses,  which  I  dare  say  are  as  sublime  as 
other  gentlemen's  compositions  at  that  age;    but  10 
being  smitten  with  a  sudden  love  for  military  glory, 
he  threw  up  the  cap  and  gown  for  the  saddle  and 
bridle,  and  rode  privately  in  the  Horse  Guards,  in 
the    Duke   of   Ormond's   troop — the   second — -and, 
probably,  with  the  rest    of    the  gentlemen  of  his  15 
troop,  "  all  mounted  on  black  horses  with   white 
feathers    in    their    hats,    and    scarlet    coats    richly 
laced,"  marched  by  King  William,  in  Hyde  Park, 
in  November  i699,f  and  a  great  show  of  the  no- 
bility, besides  twenty  thousand  people,  and  above  20 
a  thousand  coaches.     "  The  Guards  had  just  got 
their  new  clothes,"  the  London  Post  said:   "they  are 

*  "  Steele   had    the    greatest    veneration    for    Addison,    and    used    to 
show    it,   in    all   companies,    in   a   particular   manner.     Addison,   now 
and   then,   used   to   play   a   little   upon   him;     but   he   always   took   it  25 
well." — Pope.     Speiice's  Anecdotes. 

"  Sir  Richard  Steele  was  the  best-natured  creature  in  the  world: 
even  in  his  worst  state  of  health,  he  seemed  to  desire  nothing  but 
to  please  and  be  pleased." — Dr.  Young.    Silence's  Anecdotes. 

Steele,    it    may    be    noted,    was    a    few    weeks    older   than    Addison.  "O 
He  was  born   in   March,  Addison  on   ist  May,   1672. 

t  Steele  appears  to   have  been   a  trooper   in   the  Life   Guards;    but 
in   1699  he   had   received   from   Lord   Cutts   an   ensigncy  in   the  Cold- 
stream   Guards.      In    1702    he    became    captain    in    Lucas's    regiment, 
which,  however,  was  not  called  "Fusiliers." — See  Aitken's  Life  of  35 
Steele. 


STEELE  113 

extraordinary  grand,  and  thought  to  be  the  finest 
body  of  horse  in  the  world."  But  Steele  could 
hardly  have  seen  any  actual  service.  He  who  wrote 
about  himself,  his  mother,  his  wife,  his  loves,  his 
5  debts,  his  friends,  and  the  wine  he  drank,  would 
have  told  us  of  his  battles  if  he  had  seen  any.  His 
old  patron,  Ormond,  probably  got  him  his  cornetcy 
in  the  Guards,  from  which  he  was  promoted  to  be 
a  captain  in  Lucas's  Fusiliers,  getting  his  company 

10  through  the  patronage  of  Lord  Cutts,  whose  sec- 
retary he  was,  and  to  whom  he  dedicated  his  work 
called  the  "  Christian  Hero."  As  for  Dick,  whilst 
writing  this  ardent  devotional  work,  he  was  deep 
in  debt,  in  drink,  and  in  all  the  follies  of  the  town; 

15  it  is  related  that  all  the  officers  of  Lucas's,  and  the 
gentlemen  of  the  Guards,  laughed  at  Dick.*     And 

*  "  The  gaiety  of  his  dramatic  tone  may  be  seen  in  this  little  scene 
between  two  brilliant  sisters,  from  his  comedy  The  Funeral,  or  Grief 
a  la  Mode.  Dick  wrote  this,  he  said,  from  '  a  necessity  of  en- 
20  livening  his  character,'  which,  it  seemed,  the  CJiristian  Hero  had  a 
tendency  to  make  too  decorous,  grave,  and  respectable  in  the  eyes 
of  readers  of  that  pious  piece. 

[Scene   draws   and   discovers   Lady    Charlotte,    reading   at   a    table, — 
Lai>y  Harriet,  playing  at  a  glass,  to  and  fro,  and  viewing  herself .'\ 

25  "  L.  Ha.  Nay,  good  sister,  you  may  as  well  talk  to  me  [looking  at 
herself  as  she  speaks'j  as  sit  staring  at  a  book  which  I  know  you 
can't  attend. — Good  Dr.  Lucas  may  have  writ  there  what  he  pleases, 
but  there's  no  putting  Francis,  Lord  Hardy,  now  Earl  of  Brump- 
ton,  out  of  your  head,  or  making  him  absent  from  your  eyes.  Do 
30  but  look  on  me,  now,  and  deny  it  if  you  can. 

"  L.  Ch.    You  are  the  maddest  girl   [smiling']. 

"  L.  Ha.  Look  ye,  I  knew  you  could  not  say  it  and  forbear 
laughing.  [Looking  over  Charlotte.] — Oh  !  I  see  his  name  as  plain 
as  you  do — F-r-a-n,  Fran,  — c-i-s,  cis,  Francis,  'tis  in  every  line  of 
35   the  book. 

"  L.  Ch.  [rising].  It's  in  vain,  I  see,  to  mind  anything  in  such 
impertinent  company — but,  granting  'twere  as  you  say,  as  to  my 
Lord   Hardy — 'tis   more  excusable   to  admire  another  than   oneself. 

"  L.   Ha.     No.    I    think   not, — yes,    I    grant   you,   than   really   to   be 


1 1 4  ENGLISH  HUMO  URIS  TS 

in  truth  a  theologian  in  liquor  is  not  a  respectable 
object,  and  a  hermit,  though  he  may  be  out 
at    elbows,    must    not    be   in    debt    to    the    tailor. 


vain  of  one's  person,  but  I  don't  admire  myself, — Pish  !  I  don't 
believe  my  eyes  to  have  that  softness.  {Looking  in  the  glass.']  They  5 
a'n't  so  piercing:  no,  'tis  only  stuff,  the  men  will  be  talking. — Some 
people  are  such  admirers  of  teeth — Lord,  what  signifies  teeth  ! 
[Showing  her  teeth.]  A  very  black-a-moor  has  as  white  a  set  of 
teeth  as  I. — No,  sister,  I  don't  admire  myself,  but  I've  a  spirit  of 
contradiction  in  me:  I  don't  know  I'm  in  love  with  myself,  only  10 
to  rival  the  men. 

"  L.  Ch.  Ay,  but  Mr.  Campley  will  gain  ground  ev'n  of  that 
rival  of  his,  your  dear  self. 

"  L.   Ha.     Oh,    what   have    I    done   to   you,    that   you    should   name 
that    insolent    intruder  ?      A    confident,    opinionative    fop.      No,    in-  ^5 
deed,  if  I  am,  as  a  poetical  lover  of  mine  sighed  and  sung  of  both 
sexes, 

'  The  public   envy  and   the  public  care, 

I   shan't  be  so  easily  catched — I   thank  him — I   want  but  to  be   sure 
I    should    heartily    torment    him    by    banishing    him,    and    then    con-  20 
sider  whether  he  should  depart  this  life  or  not. 

"  L.  Ch.  Indeed,  sister,  to  be  serious  with  you,  this  vanity  in  your 
humour  does  not  at  all  become  you. 

"  L.    Ha.     Vanity  !     All   the   matter   is,   we   gay   people   are   more 
sincere    than    you    wise    folks:     all    your    life's    an    art. — Speak    your  25 
soul. — Look    you    there. — [Hauling    her    to    the    glass.]      Are    you    not 
struck   with   a   secret   pleasure   when    you    view    that    bloom    in   your 
look,  that  harmony  in  your  shape,  that  promptitude  in  your  mien  ? 

"  L.   Ch.     Well,   simpleton,   if   I   am   at   first   so   simple   as   to   be   a 
little    taken    with    myself,    I    know    it    a    fault,    and    take    pains    to  30 
correct   it. 

"  L.  Ha.  Pshaw  !  Pshaw  !  Talk  this  musty  tale  to  old  Mrs. 
Fardingale,   'tis  too  soon  for  me  to  think  at  that  rate. 

"  L.    Ch.     They   that   think    it   too    soon    to   understand    themselves 
will    very    soon    find    it    too    late.— But    tell    me    honestly,    don't    you  35 
like  Campley  ? 

"  L.   Ha.     The   fellow   is   not   to   be   abhorred,   if   the   forward   thing 
did   not   think   of  getting  me   so   easily. — Oh,   I   hate   a  heart   I   can't 
break  when  I  please.— What  makes  the  value  of  dear  china,  but  that 
'tis  so  brittle  ? — were  it  not  for  that,   you   might  as  well   have  stone  4" 
mugs  in   your  closet."— T/ie  Funeral,   Oct.   2nd. 

"  We  knew  the  obligations  the  stage  had  to  his  writings  [Steele's]; 
there  being  scarcely  a  comedian  of  merit  in  our  whole  company 
whom  his  Tatlers  had  not  made  better  by  his  recommendation  of 
them." — Cibber.  ., ,  45 


STEELE  115 

Steele  says  of  himself  that  he  was  always  sin- 
ning and  repenting.  He  beat  his  breast  and 
cried  most  piteously  when  he  did  repent:  but 
as    soon    as    crying    had    made    him    thirsty,    he 

5  fell  to  sinning  again.  In  that  charming  paper  in 
the  Tatlcr,  in  which  he  records  his  father's  death, 
his  mother's  griefs,  his  own  most  solemn  and  ten- 
der emotions,  he  says  he  is  interrupted  by  the  ar- 
rival of  a  hamper  of  wine,  "  the  same  as  is  to  be 

10  sold  at  Garraway's  next  week";  upon  the  receipt 
of  which  he  sends  for  three  friends,  and  they  fall 
to  instantly,  "  drinking  two  bottles  apiece,  with 
great  benefit  to  themselves,  and  not  separating  till 
two  o'clock  in  the  morning." 

15  His  life  was  so.  Jack  the  drawer  was  always  in- 
terrupting it,  bringing  him  a  bottle  from  the 
"  Rose,"  or  inviting  him  over  to  a  bout  there  with 
Sir  Plume  and  Mr.  Diver;  and  Dick  wiped  his  eyes, 
which  were  whimpering  over  his  papers,  took  down 

20  his  laced  hat,  put  on  his  sword  and  wig,  kissed  his 
wife  and  children,  told  them  a  lie  about  pressing 
business,  and  went  off  to  the  "  Rose  "  to  the  jolly 
fellows. 

When  Mr.  Addison  was  abroad,  and  after  he  came 

25  home  in  rather  a  dismal  way  to  wait  upon  Provi- 
dence in  his  shabby  lodging  in  the  Haymarket, 
young  Captain  Steele  was  cutting  a  much  smarter 
figure  than  that  of  his  classical  friend  of  Charter- 
house Cloister  and  Maudlin  Walk.   Could  not  some 

30  painter  give  an  interview  between  the  gallant  Cap- 
tain of  Lucas's,  with  his  hat  cocked,  and  his  lace, 
and  his  face  too,  a  trifle  tarnished  with  drink,  and 


Il6  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

that  poet,  that  philosopher,  pale,  proud,  and  poor, 
his  friend  and  monitor  of  school-days,  of  all  days? 
How  Dick  must  have  bragged  about  his  chances 
and  his  hopes,  and  the  fine  company  he  kept,  and 
the  charms  of  the  reigning  toasts  and  popular  act-  5 
resses,  and  the  number  of  bottles  that  he  and  my 
Lord  and  some  other  pretty  fellows  had  cracked 
over-night  at  the  "  Devil,"  or  the  "  Garter  "  !  Can- 
not one  fancy  Joseph  Addison's  calm  smile  and 
cold  grey  eyes  following  Dick  for  an  instant,  as  he  10 
struts  down  the  Mall  to  dine  with  the  Guard  at 
Saint  James's,  before  he  turns,  with  his  sober  pace 
and  threadbare  suit,  to  walk  back  to  his  lodgings  up 
the  two  pair  of  stairs?  Steele's  name  was  down  for 
promotion,  Dick  always  said  himself,  in  the  glo- 15 
rious,  pious,  and  immortal  William's  last  table- 
book.  Jonathan  .Swift's  name  had  been  written 
there  by  the  same  hand  too. 

Our  worthy  friend,  the  author  of  the  "  Christian 
Hero,"  continued  to  make  no  small  figure  about  20 
town  by  the  use  of  his  wits.*  He  was  appointed 
Gazetteer:  he  wrote,  in  1703,  "The  Tender  Hus- 
band," his  second  play,  in  which  there  is  some  de- 
lightful farcical  writing,  and  of  which  he  fondly 
owned  in  after  life,  and  when  Addison  was  no  25 
more,  that  there  were  "  many  applauded  strokes  " 
from  Addison's  beloved  hand.f    Is  it  not  a  pleasant 

*  "  There  is  not  now  in  his  sight  that  excellent  man,  whom 
Heaven  made  his  friend  and  superior,  to  be  at  a  certain  place  in 
pain  for  what  he  should  say  or  do.  I  will  go  on  in  his  further  30 
encouragement.  The  best  woman  that  ever  man  had  cannot  now 
lament  and  pine  at  his  neglect  of  himself." — Steele  [of  himself]: 
The   Theatre.     No.    u,    Feb.    1719-30. 

t  The  Funeral  supplies  an  admirable  rtroke  of  humour, — one  which 


STEELE  117 

partnership  to  remember?  Can't  one  fancy  Steele 
full  of  spirits  and  youth,  leaving  his  gay  company 
to  go  to  Addison's  lodging,  where  his  friend  sits  in 
the  shabby  sitting-room,  quite  serene,  and  cheerful, 
Sand  poor?  In  1704,  Steele  came  on  the  town  with 
another  comedy,  and  behold  it  was  so  moral 
and  religious,  as  poor  Dick  insisted, — so  dull  the 
town  thought, — that  the  "  Lying  Lover "  was 
damned.* 

10  Addison's  hour  of  success  now  came,  and  he  was 
able  to  help  our  friend  the  "  Christian  Hero  "  in 
such  a  way,  that,  if  there  had  been  any  chance  of 
keeping  that  poor  tipsy  champion  upon  his  legs, 
his  fortune  was  safe,  and  his  competence  assured. 

15  Steele  procured  the  place  of  Commissioner  of 
Stamps:  he  wrote  so  richly,  so  gracefully  often,  so 
kindly  always,  with  such  a  pleasant  wit  and  easy 
frankness,  with  such  a  gush  of  good  spirits  and 
good  humour,  that  his  early  papers  may  be  com- 

20  pared  to  Addison's  own,  and  are  to  be  read,  by  a 

Sydney    Smith    has    used    as    an    illustration    of    the    faculty    in    his 
lectures. 
The  undertaker  is  talking  to  his  employes  about  their  duty. 
"  Sable.     Ha,   you  !— A   little  more   upon   the   dismal    [forming  their 

25  countenaiiccs'\ ;  this  fellow  has  a  good  mortal  look,— place  him  near 
the  corpse:  that  wainscot-face  must  be  o'top  of  the  stairs;  that 
fellow's  almost  in  a  fright  (that  looks  as  if  he  were  full  of  some 
strange  misery)  at  the  end  of  the  hall.  So— But  I'll  fix  you  all  my- 
self.    Let's  have  no  laughing  now  on  any  provocation.     Look  yonder 

30  —that  hale,  well-looking  puppy  !  You  ungrateful  scoundrel,  did 
not  I  pity  you,  take  you  out  of  a  great  man's  service,  and  show 
you  the  pleasure  of  receiving  wages  ?  Did  not  I  give  you  ten,  then 
fifteen,  and  twenty  shillings  a  week  to  be  sorrowful  f—and  the  more  I 
give  you  I  think  the  gladder  you  are  !  " 

35  *  There  is  some  confusion  here  as  to  dates.  Steele's  first  play, 
the  Funeral,  was  brought  out  in  December  1701 ;  his  second,  the 
Lying  Lover,  in  December  1703;  and  his  third,  the  Tender  Husband, 
jn  April   1705. 


Il8  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

male   reader   at   least,   with    quite   an   equal   plea- 
sure.* 

After  the  Taller  in   171 1,  the  famous  Spectator 
made   its   appearance,    and   this   was    followed   at 

*  "  From  my  own  Apartment:  No7\  i6.  e 
"  There  are  several  persons  who  have  many  pleasures  and  enter- 
tainments in  their  possession,  which  they  do  not  enjoy;  it  is,  there- 
fore, a  kind  and  good  office  to  acquaint  them  with  their  own 
happiness,  and  turn  their  attention  to  such  instances  of  their  good 
fortune  as  they  are  apt  to  overlook.  Persons  in  the  married  state  lo 
often  want  such  a  monitor;  and  pine  away  their  days  by  looking 
upon  the  same  condition  in  anguish  and  murmuring,  which  carries 
with  it,  in  the  opinion  of  others,  a  complication  of  all  the  pleasures 
of  life,   and  a  retreat  from  its   inquietudes. 

"  I   am   led   into   this   thought  by  a   visit   I   made  to  an   old  friend  15 
who   was    formerly    my    schoolfellow.      He   came   to    town   last   week, 
with    his   family,    for   the    winter;     and    yesterday    morning    sent    me 
word  his  wife  expected  me  to  dinner.     I  am,  as  it  were,  at  home  at 
that  house,  and  every  member  of  it  knows  me  for  their  well-wisher. 
I   cannot,   indeed,   express   the  pleasure  it   is  to   be   met   by  the   chil-  20 
dren   with   so  much  joy  as   I   am  when   I   go  thither.     The  boys  and 
girls   strive   who   shall    come   first,   when   they   think   it   is   I   that  am 
knocking  at   the   door;     and   that   child  which   loses   the   race   to   me 
runs   back   again   to   tell   the   father   it   is    Mr.    Bickerstaff.     This   day 
I   was  led  in  by  a  pretty  girl  that  we  all  thought  must  have  forgot  25 
me;     for    the    family    has    been    out    of   town   these    two    years.      Her 
knowing  me  again   was  a  mighty  subject  with   us,   and   took   up  our 
discourse  at  the  first  entrance;    after  which,  they  began  to  rally  me 
upon  a  thousand   little   stories  they  heard  in   the  country,   about   my 
marriage    to    one    of    my    neighbours'    daughters;     upon    which,    the  30 
gentleman,  my  friend,  said,  '  Nay;    if  Mr.  Bickerstaflf  marries  a  child 
of  any  of  his  old  companions,  I  hope  mine  shall  have  the  preference: 
there   is    Mrs.    Mary   is    now    si.xteen,    and    would    make   him    as   fine 
a  widow  as  the  best  of  them.     But  I  know  him  too  well;    he  is  so 
enamoured    with    the   very    memory   of   those   who   flourished   in   our  35 
youth,  that  he  will  not  so  much  as  look  upon  the  modern  beauties. 
I   remember,   old  gentleman,  how  often   you  went  home  in  a  day  to 
refresh    your    countenance    and    dress    when    Teraminta    reigned    in 
your   heart.     As   we   came   up   in   the   coach,    I   repeated   to   my   wife 
some  of  your  verses  on  her.'     With  such  reflections  on  little  passages  .0 
which  happened  long  ago,  we  passed  our  time  during  a  cheerful  and 
elegant   meal.     After   dinner   his   lady  left   the  room,   as   did   also   the 
children.      .-\s    soon    as    we    were    alone,    he    took    me    by    the    hand: 
'  Well,   my   good   friend,'   says   he,    '  I   am   heartily   glad   to   see   thee; 
I  was  afraid  you  would  never  have  seen  all  the  company  that  dined -15 
with   you  to-day   again.     Do   not   you  think  the  good   woman   of  the 
house   a    little    altered    since    you    followed    her   from    the   playhouse 


STEELE  119 

various  intervals,  by  many  periodicals  under  the 
same  editor — the  Guardian — the  Englishman — the 
Lover,  whose  love  was  rather  insipid — the  Reader, 
of  whom  the  public  saw  no  more  after  his  second  ap- 

5  to  find  out  who  she  was  for  me  ?  '  I  perceived  a  tear  fall  down  his 
cheek  as  he  spoke,  wliich  moved  me  not  a  little.  But,  to  turn  the 
discourse,  I  said,  '  She  is  not,  indeed,  that  creature  she  was  when 
she  returned  me  the  letter  I  carried  from  you,  and  told  me,  "  She 
hoped,    as    I    was    a    gentleman,    I    would    be    employed    no    more    to 

10  trouble  her,  who  had  never  offended  me;  but  would  be  so  much  the 
gentleman's  friend  as  to  dissuade  him  from  a  pursuit  which  he 
•could  never  succeed  in."  You  may  remember  I  thought  her  in 
earnest,  and  you  were  forced  to  employ  your  cousin  Will,  who 
made  his  sister  get  acquainted  with  her  for  you.     You  cannot  expect 

25  lier  to  be  for  ever  fifteen.'  '  Fifteen  !  '  replied  my  good  friend. 
■^  Ah  !  you  little  understand— you,  that  have  lived  a  bachelor— how 
great,  how  exquisite  a  pleasure  there  is  in  being  really  beloved  ! 
It  is  impossible  that  the  most  beauteous  face  in  nature  should  raise 
in    me    such    pleasing    ideas    as    when    I    look    upon    that    excellent 

::o  woman.  That  fading  in  her  countenance  is  chiefly  caused  by  her 
watching  with  me  in  my  fever.  This  was  followed  by  a  fit  of  sick- 
ness, which  had  like  to  have  carried  me  off  last  winter.  I  tell  you, 
sincerely,  I  have  so  many  obligations  to  her  that  I  cannot,  with 
any   sort  of  moderation,   think  of  her   present   state  of  health.     But, 

25  as  to  what  you  say  of  fifteen,  she  gives  me  every  day  pleasure 
beyond  what  I  ever  knew  in  the  possession  of  her  beauty  when  I 
was  in  the  vigour  of  youth.  Every  moment  of  her  life  brings  me 
fresh  instances  of  her  complacency  to  my  inclinations,  and  her 
prudence  in   regard   to  my  fortune.     Her  face  is   to   me   much   more 

30  beautiful  than  when  I  first  saw  it;  there  is  no  decay  in  any  feature 
which  I  cannot  trace  from  the  very  instant  it  was  occasioned  by 
some  anxious  concern  for  my  welfare  and  interests.  Thus,  at  the 
same  time,  methinks.  the  love  I  conceived  towards  her  for  what 
she  was,   is   heightened   by  my  gratitude  for  what'  she  is.     The   love 

35  of  a  wife  is  as  much  above  the  idle  passion  commonly  called  by  that 
name,  as  the  loud  laughter  of  buffoons  is  inferior  to  the  elegant 
mirth  of  gentlemen.  Oh  !  she  is  an  inestimable  jewel  !  In  her 
examination  of  her  household  affairs,  she  shows  a  certain  fearful- 
ness  to  find  a  fault,  which  makes  her  servants  obey  her  like  children; 

40  and  the  meanest  we  have  has  an  ingenuous  shame  for  an  offence 
not  always  to  be  seen  in  children  in  other  families.  I  speak  freely 
to  you,  my  old  friend;  ever  since  her  sickness,  things  that  gave 
me  the  quickest  joy  before  turn  now  to  a  certain  anxiety.  As  the 
children   play   in   the   next  room,    I    know   the   poor   things   by   their 

4  5  steps,  and  am  considering  what  they  must  do  should  they  lose  their 
mother  in  their  tender  years.  The  pleasure  I  used  to  take  in  telling 
my  boy  stories  of  battles,  and  asking  my  girl  questions  about  the 


I20  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

pearance — the  Theatre,  under  the  pseudonym  of  Sir 
John  Edgar,  which  Steele  wrote  while  Governor  of 
the  Royal  Company  of  Comedians,  to  which  post, 
and  to  that  of  Surveyor  of  the  Royal  Stables  at 

disposal  of  her  baby,  and  the  gossiping  of  it,  is  turned  into  inward     e 
reflection   and   melancholy.' 

"  He  would  have  gone  on  in  this  tender  way,  when  the  good  lady 
entered,  and,  with  an  inexpressible  sweetness  in  her  countenance, 
told  us,  '  she  had  been  searching  her  closet  for  something  very  good 
to  treat  such  an  old  friend  as  I  was.'  Her  husband's  eyes  sparkled  lO 
with  pleasure  at  the  cheerfulness  of  her  countenance;  and  I  saw 
all  his  fears  vanish  in  an  instant.  The  lady  observing  something 
in  our  looks  which  showed  we  had  been  more  serious  than  ordinary, 
and  seeing  her  husband  receive  her  with  great  concern  under  a 
forced  cheerfulness,  immediately  guessed  at  what  we  had  been  15 
talking  of;  and  applying  herself  to  me,  said,  with  a  smile,  '  Mr. 
BickerstafJ,  do  not  believe  a  word  of  what  he  tells  you;  I  shall  still 
live  to  have  you  for  my  second,  as  I  have  often  promised  you, 
unless  he  takes  more  care  of  himself  than  he  has  done  since  his 
coming  to  town.  You  must  know  he  tells  me,  that  he  finds  London  20 
is  a  much  more  healthy  place  than  the  country;  for  he  sees  several 
of  his  old  acquaintances  and  schoolfellows  are  here— young  fellows 
with  fair,  full-bottomed  periwigs.  I  could  scarce  keep  him  this 
morning  from  going  out  open-breasted.'  My  friend,  who  is  always 
extremely  delighted  with  her  agreeable  humour,  made  her  sit  down  25 
with  us.  She  did  it  with  that  easiness  which  is  peculiar  to  women 
of  sense;  and  to  keep  up  the  good  humour  she  had  brought  in 
with  her,  turned  her  raillery  upon  me.  '  Mr.  Bickerstaff,  you  re- 
member you  followed  me  one  night  from  the  playhouse;  suppose 
you  should  carry  me  thither  to-morrow  night,  and  lead  me  in  the  3o 
front  box.'  This  put  us  into  a  long  field  of  discourse  about  the 
beauties  who  were  the  mothers  to  the  present,  and  shined  in  the 
boxes  twenty  years  ago.  I  told  her  '  I  was  glad  she  had  transferred 
so  many  of  her  charms,  and  I  did  not  question  but  her  eldest  daugh- 
ter was  within  half-a-year  of  being  a  toast.'  35 

"  We  were  pleasing  ourselves  with  this  fantastical  preferment  of 
the  young  lady,  when,  on  a  sudden,  we  were  alarmed  witii  the 
noise  of  a  drum,  and  immediately  entered  my  little  godson  to  give 
me  a  point  of  war.  His  mother,  between  laughing  and  chiding, 
would  have  put  him  out  of  the  room;  but  I  would  not  part  with  40 
him  so.  I  found,  upon  conversation  with  him,  though  he  was  a 
little  noisy  in  his  mirth,  that  the  child  had  excellent  parts,  and  v.  as 
a  great  master  of  all  the  learning  on  the  other  side  of  eight  ye-\c<. 
old.  I  perceived  him  a  very  great  historian  in  JEsop's  Fables:  but 
he  frankly  declared  to  me  his  mind,  '  that  he  did  not  delight  in  45 
that  learning,  because  he  did  not  believe  they  were  true;  '  for 
which    reason    I    found    he    had    very   much    turned    his    studies,    for 


STEELE  121 

Hampton  Court,  and  to  the  Commission  of  the 
Peace  for  Middlesex,  and  to  the  honour  of  knight- 
hood, Steele  had  been  preferred  soon  after  the 
accession  of  George  I.;  whose  cause  honest  Dick 
5  had  nobly  fought,  through  disgrace,  and  danger, 
against  the  most  formidable  enemies,  against  trai- 
tors and  bullies,  against  Bolingbroke  and  Swift  in 
the  last  reign.  With  the  arrival  of  the  King,  that 
splendid  conspiracy  broke  up;  and  a  golden  op- 
lo  portunity  came  to  Dick  Steele,  whose  hand,  alas, 
was  too  careless  to  gripe  it.* 

Steele  married  twice;  and  o-utlived  his  places, 
his  schemes,  his  wife,  his  inoome,  his  health,  and 
almost  everything  but  his  kind  heart.    That  ceased 

15  about  a  twelvemonth  past,  into  the  lives  of  Don  BelHanis  of  Greece, 
Guy  of  Warwick,  '  the  Seven  Champions,'  and  other  historians  of 
that  age.  I  could  not  but  observe  the  satisfaction  the  father  took 
in  the  forwardness  of  his  son,  and  that  these  diversions  might  turn 
to   some   profit.     I    found   the    boy   had   made   remarks   which    might 

20  be  of  service  to  him  during  the  course  of  his  whole  life.  He  would 
tell  you  the  mismanagement  of  John  Hickerthrift,  find  fault  with  the 
passionate  temper  in  Bevis  of  Southampton,  and  loved  Saint  George 
for  being  the  champion  of  England;  and  by  this  means  had  his 
thoughts   insensibly   moulded   into   the   notions   of   discretion,   virtue, 

25  and  honour.  I  was  extolling  his  accomplishments,  when  his  mother 
told  me  '  that  the  little  girl  who  let  me  in  this  morning  was,  in  her 
way,  a  better  scholar  than  he.  Betty,'  said  she,  '  deals  chiefly  in 
fairies  and  sprights;  and  sometimes  in  a  winter  night  will  terrify 
the    maids    with    her    accounts,    until    they    are    afraid    to    go    up    to 

30  bed.* 

"  I  sat  with  them  until  it  was  very  late,  sometimes  in  merry 
sometimes  in  serious  discourse,  with  this  particular  pleasure,  which 
gives  the  only  true  relish  to  all  conversation,  a  sense  that  every 
one  of  us  liked  each  other.   I   went  home,   considering  the   different 

35  conditions  of  a  married  life  and  that  of  a  bachelor;  and  I  must 
confess  it  struck  me  with  a  secret  concern  to  reflect,  that  whenever 
I  go  ofif  I  shall  leave  no  traces  behind  mc.  In  this  j^cnsive  mood 
I  return  to  my  family;  that  is  to  say,  to  my  maid,  ray  dog,  my 
cat,  who  only  can  be  the  better  or  worse  for  what  happens  to  me." — 

40  The  Tatler. 

*  He  took  what  he  could  get,  though  it  was  not  much. 


122  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

to  trouble  him  in  1729,  when  he  died,  worn  out  and 
ahnost  forgotten  by  his  contemporaries,  in  Wales, 
where  he  had  the  remnant  of  a  property. 

Posterity  has  been  kinder  to  this  amiable  crea- 
ture;   all  women  especially  are  bound  to  be  grate-    5 
ful  to  Steele,  as  he  was  the  first  of  our  writers  who 
really  seemed  to  admire  and  rerpect  them.     Con- 
greve  the  Great,  who  alludes  to  the  low  estima- 
tion in  which  \\'omen  were  held  in  Elizabeth's  time, 
as  a  reason  why  the  women  of  Sliakspeare  make  10 
so  small  a  figure  in  the  poet's  dialogues,  though 
he  can  himself  pay  splendid  compliments  to  women, 
yet  looks  on  them  as  mere  instruments  of  gallantry, 
and  destined,  like  the  most  consummate  fortifica- 
tions, to  fall,  after  a  certain  time,  before  the  arts  and  '5 
bravery  of  the  besieger,  man.     There  is  a  letter  of 
Swift's  entitled  "  Advice  to  a  very  Young  Married 
Lady,"  which  shows  the  Dean's  opinion  of  the  fe- 
male society  of  his  day,  and  that  if  he  despised  man 
he  utterly  scorned  women  too.     No  lady  of  our  20 
time  could  be  treated  by  any  man,  were  he  ever  so 
much  a  wit  or  Dean,  in  such  a  lone  of  insolent  pa- 
tronage and  vulgar  protection.     In  this  perform- 
ance. Swift  hardly  takes  pains  to  hide  his  opinion 
that  a  woman  is  a  fool:   tells  her  to  read  books,  as  "5 
if  reading  was  a  novel  accomplishment;    and  in- 
forms her  that  "  not  one  gentleman's  daughter  in  a 
thousand  has  been  brought  to  read  or  understand 
her    own    natural    tongue."      Addison    laughs    at 
women  equally ;  but,  with  the  gentleness  and  polite-  3° 
ness  of  his  nature,  smiles  at  them  and  watches  them, 
as    if   they    were    harmless,    half-witted,    amusing, 


STEELE  123 

pretty  creatures,  only  made  to  be  men's  playthings. 
It  was  Steele  who  first  began  to  pay  a  manly 
homage  to  their  goodness  and  understanding,  as 
well  as  to  their  tenderness  and  beauty.*      In  his 

5  comedies  the  heroes  do  not  rant  and  rave  about 
the  divine  beauties  of  Gloriana  or  Statira,  as  the 
characters  were  made  to  do  in  the  chivalry  ro- 
mances and  the  high-flown  dramas  just  going  out 
of  vogue;    but  Steele  admires  women's  virtue,  ac- 

10  knowledges  their  sense,  and  adores  their  purity  and 
Ijeauty,  with  an  ardour  and  strength  which  should 
win  the  good-will  of  all  women  to  their  hearty  and 
respectful  champion.  It  is  this  ardour,  this  respect, 
this  manliness,  which  makes  his  comedies  so  pleas- 

15  ant  and  their  heroes  such  fine  gentlemen.  He  paid 
the  finest  compliment  to  a  woman  that  perhaps  ever 
was  ofi:'ered.  Of  one  woman,  whom  Congreve  had 
rdso  admired  and  celebrated,  Steele  says,  that  "  to 
have  loved  her  was  a  liberal  education."     "  How 

20  often,"  he  .says,  dedicating'  a  volume  to  his  wife, 
"  how  often  has  your  tenderness  removed  pain 
from  my  sick  head,  how  often  anguish  from  my 
afflicted  heart!     If  there  are  such  beings  as  guar- 

*  "  As  to  the  pursuits  after  affection  and  esteem,  the  fair  sex  are 
25  happy  in  this  particular,  that  with  them  the  one  is  much  more  nearly 
related  to  the  other  than  in  men.  The  love  of  a  woman  is  in- 
separable from  some  esteem  of  her;  and  as  she  is  naturally  the 
object  of  affection,  the  woman  who  has  your  esteem  has  also  some 
degree  of  your  love.     A  man  that  dotes  on  a  woman  for  her  beauty, 

30  will  whisper  his  friend,  '  That  creature  has  a  great  deal  of  wit  when 
you  are  well  acquainted  with  her.'  And  if  you  examine  the  bottom 
of  your  esteem  for  a  woman,  you  will  find  you  have  a  greater 
opinion  of  her  beauty  than  anybody  else.  As  to  us  men,  I  design 
to  pass  most  of  my  time  with  the  facetious  Harry  Bickerstaff;    but 

35  William  Bickerstaff,  the  most  prudent  man  of  our  family,  shall  be 
my  executor." — Tatler,  No.  206. 


124  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

dian  angels,  they  are  thus  employed.  I  cannot  be- 
lieve one  of  them  to  be  more  good  in  inclination, 
or  more  charming  in  form  than  my  wife."  His 
breast  seems  to  warm  and  his  eyes  to  kindle  when 
lie  meets  with  a  good  and  beautiful  w^oman,  and  it  5 
is  with  his  heart  as  well  as  with  his  hat  that  he  sa- 
lutes her.  About  children,  and  all  that  relates  to 
home,  he  is  not  less  tender,  and  more  than  once 
speaks  in  apology  of  what  he  calls  his  softness.  He 
would  have  been  nothing  without  that  delightful  lo 
weakness.  It  is  that  which  gives  his  works  their 
w^orth  and  his  style  its  charm.  It,  like  his  life,  is 
full  cf  faults  and  careless  blunders;  and  redeemed, 
like  that,  by  his  sweet  and  compassionate  nature. 

We  possess  of  poor  Steele's  wild  and  chequered  ^5 
life  some  of  the  most  curious  memoranda  that  ever 
\vere  left  of  a  man's  biography.*    Most  men's  let- 

*  The  Correspondence  of  Steele  passed  after  his  death  into  the 
possession  of  his  daughter  Elizabeth,  by  his  second  wife.  Miss  Scur- 
lock  of  Carmarthenshire.  She  married  the  Hon.  John,  afterwards  20 
th-ird  Lord  Trevor.  At  her  death,  part  of  the  letters  passed  to  Mr. 
Thomas,  a  grandson  of  a  natural  daughter  of  Steele's;  and  part  to 
Lady  Trevor's  next  of  kin,  Mr.  Scurlock.  They  were  published  by 
the  learned  Nichols — from  whose  later  edition  of  them,  in  1809,  our 
specimens  are  quoted.  25 

Here  we  have  him,   in  his  courtship — which  was  not  a  very  long 
one: — 

To  Mrs.  Scurlock. 

"  Aug.  30,  1707. 
"  Madam, — I   beg   pardon   that   my   paper   is   not   finer,   but   I   am  30 
forced    to   write   from    a    coffee-house,    where    I    am   attending    about 
business.      There    is    a    dirty    crowd    of    busy    faces    all    around    me, 
talking   of   money;     while   all    my  ambition,   all   my   wealth,   is   love  I 
Love  which   animates  my   heart,   sweetens  my  humour,   enlarges   my 
soul,  and  affects  every  action  of  my  life.     It  is  to  my  lovely  charmer  35 
I    owe,   that   many   noble   ideas   are  continually  affixed   to   my  words 
and    actions;     it    is    the   natural    effect    of   that    generous    passion    to 


STEELE  125 

ters,  from  Cicero  down  to  Walpole,  or  down  to  the 
great  men  of  our  time,  if  you  will,  are  doctored 
compositions,  and  written  with  an  eye  suspicious 
towards  posterity.  That  dedication  of  Steele's  to 
5  his  wife  is  an  artificial  performance,  possibly;    at 

create  in  the  admirer  some  similitude  of  the  object  admired.  Thus, 
my  dear,  am  I  every  day  to  improve  from  so  sweet  a  companion. 
Look  up,  my  fair  one,  to  that  Heaven  which  made  thee  such;  and 
join  with  me  to  implore  its  influence  on  our  tender  innocent  hours, 
10  and  beseech  the  Author  of  love  to  bless  the  rites  He  has  ordained 
— and  m.ingle  with  our  happiness  a  just  sense  of  our  transient  condi- 
tion, and  a  resignation  to  His  will,  which  only  can  regulate  our 
minds  to  a  steady  endeavour  to  please  Him  and  each  other. 

"  I  am  for  ever  your  faithful   servant, 

"  Rich.   Steele." 

Some  few  hours  afterwards,  apparently,  Mistress  Scurlock  received 
the  next  one — obviously   written  later   in   the   day  : — 


15 


"  Saturday  Night  (Aug.  30,  1707). 
"  Dear  lovely  Mrs.   Scurlock, — I  have  been  in  very  good  com- 
20Pany.    where   your   health,    under   the   character   of   the   woman  I   love 
best,    has    been    often    drunk;     so    that    I    may    say    that    I    am    dead 
drunk  for  your  sake,  which  is  more  than  /  die  for  you. 

"  Rich.   Steele." 

To  Mrs.  Scurlock. 
25  "  Sept.  I,  1707. 

"  Madam, — It  is  the  hardest  thing  in  the  world  to  be  in  love,  and 
yet  attend  business.  As  for  me,  all  who  speak  to  me  find  me  out, 
and  I   must  lock  myself  up,  or  other  people  will  do  it  for  me. 

"  A  gentleman  asked  me  this  morning,  '  What  news  from  Lis- 
30  bon  ?  '  and  I  answered,  '  She  is  exquisitely  handsome.'  Another 
desired  to  know  '  when  I  had  last  been  at  Hampton  Court  ?  '  I 
replied,  '  It  will  be  on  Tuesday  come  se'nnight.'  Pr'ythee  allow  me 
at  least  to  kiss  your  hand  before  that  day,  that  my  mind  may  be  in 
some  composure.     O   Love  ! 

3^  "  '  A  thousand  torments  dwell  about  thee, 

Yet  who  could  live,  to  live  without  thee  ?  ' 

"  Methinks  I  could  write  a  volume  to  you;    but  all  the  language 
on    earth    would    fail    in    saying    how    much,    and    with    what    disin- 
terested passion,  I  am  ever  yours, 
40  "  Rich.   Steele." 

Two  days  after  this,  he  is  found  expounding  his  circumstances 
and  prospects  to  the  young  lady's   mamma.     He  dates  from   "  Lord 


126  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

least,  it  is  written  with  that  degree  of  artifice  which 
an  orator  uses  in  arranging  a  statement  for  the 
House,  or  a  poet  employs  in  preparing  a  sentiment 
in  verse  or  for  the  stage.  But  there  are  some  four 
hundred  letters  of  Dick  Steele's  to  his  wife,  which    5 

Sunderland's  office,  Whitehall;  "  and  states  his  clear  income  at 
£1025  per  annum.  "  I  promise  myself,"  says  he,  "  the  pleasure  of 
an  industrious  and  virtuous  life,  in  studying  to  do  things  agreeable 
to  you." 

They  were  married,  according  to  the  most  probable  conjectures,  lo 
about  the  7th  Sept.  There  are  traces  of  a  tiflf  about  the  middle  of 
the  next  month;  she  being  prudish  and  fidgety,  as  he  was  im- 
passioned and  reckless.  General  progress,  however,  may  be  seen 
from  the  following  notes.  The  "  house  in  Bury  Street,  Saint 
James's,"  was  now  taken.  '5 


To  Mrs.  Steele. 

"  Oct.  16,  1707, 
"  Dearest   Being   on   Earth, — Pardon   me  if  you   do  not   see  me 
till   eleven  o'clock,  having  met  a  schoolfellow  from   India,  by  whom 
I   am  to  be  informed  on   things  this  night  which   expressly  concern  go 
your  obedient  husband, 

"  Rich.   Steele." 


To  Mrs.  Steele. 

"Eight  o'clock,  Fountain  Tavern: 

"  Oct.  22,  1707.  25 

"  My  Dear, — I  beg  of  you  not  to  be  uneasy;  for  I  have  done  a 
great  deal  of  business  to-day  very  successfully,  and  wait  an  hour  or 
two  about  my  Gazette. 

"  Dec.  22,  1707. 
"  My  dear,  dear  Wife, — I  write  to  let  you  know  I  do  not  come  30 
home   to   dinner,   being   obliged   to   attend   some   business   abroad,   of 
which  I  shall  give  you  an  account  (when  I  see  you  in  the  evening), 
as  becomes  your  dutiful  and  obedient  husband." 

"  Devil  Tavern,  Temple  Bar: 

"  Jan.  3,  1707-8.  35 

"  Dear  Prue, — I  have  partly  succeeded  in  my  business  to-day, 
and   inclose   two   guineas   as   earnest   of  more.     Dear   Prue,   I    cannot 


STEELE  127 

that  thrifty  woman  preserved  accurately,  and  which 
could  have  been  written  but  for  her  and  her 
alone.  They  contain  details  of  the  business,  pleas- 
ures, quarrels,  reconciliations  of  the  pair;  they  have 

5  come  home  to  dinner.     I   languish   for  your  welfare,   and   will   never 
be  a  moment  careless  more. 

"  Your  faithful   husband,"   «S:c. 

"  Jan.  \.\,  1707-8. 
"  Dear  Wife, — Mr.   Edgecombe,   Ned  Ask,  and   Mr.    Lumley  have 
10  desired  me  to  sit  an  hour  with  them  at  the  '  George  '  in   Pall   Mall, 
for   which    I    desire   your   patience   till   twelve   o'clock,   and   that   you 
will  go  to  bed,"  &c. 

"Gray's  Inn:    Feb.  3,  1708. 

"  Dear    Prue, — If    the    man    who    has    my    shoemaker's    bill    calls, 

^5  let   him   be  answered   that    I    shall   call   on   liim   as   I    come  home.     I 

stay  here  in  order  to  get  Jonson  to  discount  a  bill  for  me,  and  shall 

dine  with  him  for  that  end.     He  is  expected  at  home  every  minute. 

"  Your  most  humble,  obedient  servant,"  «&c. 

"Tennis-Court  Coffee-house:    May  s,  1708. 

*^  "  Dear  Wife,— I  hope  I  have  done  this  day  what  will  be  pleasing 
to  you;  in  the  meantime  shall  lie  this  night  at  a  baker's,  one  Leg, 
over  against  the  '  Devil  Tavern,'  at  Charing  Cross.  I  shall  be  able 
to  confront  the  fools  who  wish  me  uneasy,  and  shall  have  the  satis- 
faction  to  see  thee  cheerful   and  at  ease. 

25  "  If  the  printer's  boy  be  at  home,  send  him  hither;  and  let  Mrs. 
Todd  send  by  the  boy  my  night-gown,  slippers,  and  clean  linen. 
You  shall  hear  from  me  early  in  the  morning,"  &c. 

Dozens    of    similar    letters    follow,    with    occasional    guineas,    little 
parcels  of  tea,   or  walnuts,   &c.     In   1709  the   Taller  made  its  appear- 
30  ance.    The  following  curious  note  dates  April  7th,  1710: — 

"  I  enclose  to  you  ['  Dear  Prue  ']  a  receipt  for  the  saucepan 
and  spoon,  and  a  note  of  £23  of  Lewis's,  which  will  make  up  the 
£50  I   promised   for  your  ensuing  occasion. 

"  I  know  no  happiness  in  this  life  in  any  degree  comparable  to 
35  the  pleasure  I  have  in  your  person  and  society.  I  only  beg  of  you 
to  add  to  your  other  charms  a  fearfulness  to  see  a  man  that  loves 
you  in  pain  and  uneasiness,  to  make  me  as  happy  as  it  is  possible 
to  be  in  this  life.  Rising  a  little  in  a  morning,  and  being  disposed 
to   a  cheerfulness  .  .  .  would   not   be   amiss." 

40  In  another,  he  is  found  excusing  his  coming  home,  being  "  invited 
to  supper  to  Mr.  Boyle's."  "  Dear  Prue,"  he  says  on  this  occasion, 
"  do  not  send  after  me,  for  I  shall  be  ridiculous." 


128  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

all  the  genuineness  of  conversation;    they  are  as 
artless  as  a  child's  prattle,  and  as  confidential  as 
a  curtain-lecture.    Some  are  written  from  the  print- 
ing-office, where  he  is  waiting  for  the  proof-sheets 
of  his  Gazette,  or  his  Tatler;  some  are  written  from  5 
llie  tavern,  whence  he  promises  to  come  to  his  wife 
"  within  a  pint  of  wine,"  and  where  he  has  given 
a  rendezvous  to  a  friend  or  a  money-lender:   some 
are  composed  in  a  high  state  of  vinous  excitement, 
when  his  head  is  flustered  with  burgundy,  and  his  10 
heart  abounds  with  amorous  warmth  for  his  darling 
Prue:    some  are  under  the  influence  of  the  dismal 
headache    and    repentance    next    morning:     some, 
alas,  are  from  the  lock-up  house,  where  the  law- 
yers have  impounded  him,  and  where  he  is  wait- 15 
ing    for    bail.      You    trace    many    years    of    the 
poor    fellow's    career    in    these    letters.      In    Sep- 
tember    1707 ,  from    which     day    she    began    to 
save    the    letters,    he    married    the    beautiful    Mis-    • 
tress    Scurlock.      You    have    his    passionate    pro- 20 
testations  to  the  lady;    his  respectful  proposals  to 
her  mamma;    his  private  prayer  to  Heaven  when 
the  union  so  ardently  desired  was  completed;    his 
fond    professions    of    contrition    and    promises    of 
amendment,  when,  immediately  after  his  marriage,  25 
there  began  to  be  just  cause  for  the  one  and  need 
for  the  other. 

Captain  Steele  took  a  house  for  his  lady  upon 
their    marriage,    "  the    third    door    from    Germain 
Street,  left  hand  of  Berry  Street,"  and  the  next  30 
year  he  presented  his  wife  with  a  country  house  at 
Hampton.     It  appears  she  had  a  chariot  and  pair, 


STEELE  129 

und  sometimes  four  horses:  he  himself  enjoyed  a 
little  horse  for  his  own  riding.  He  paid,  or  prom- 
ised to  pay,  his  barber  fifty  pounds  a  year,  and  al- 
ways went  abroad  in  a  laced  coat  and  a  large  black 

5  buckled  periwig,  that  must  have  cost  somebody 
fifty  guineas.  He  was  rather  a  well-to-do  gentle- 
man. Captain  Steele,  with  the  proceeds  of  his  es- 
tates in  Barbadoes  (left  to  him  by  his  first  wife), 
his  income  as  a  writer  of  the  Gazette,  and  his  office 

10  of  gentleman  waiter  to  his  Royal  Highness  Prince 
George.  His  second  wife  brought  him  a  fortune 
too.  But  it  IS  melancholy  to  relate,  that  with  these 
houses  and  chariots  and  horses  and  income,  the 
Captain  was  constantly  in  want  of  money,  for  which 

15  his  beloved  bride  was  asking  as  constantly.  In  the 
course  of  a  few  pages  we  begin  to  find  the  shoe- 
maker calling  for  money,  and  some  directions  from 
the  Captain,  who  has  not  thirty  pounds  to  spare. 
He  sends  his  wife,  "  the  beautifullest  object  in  the 

20  world,"  as  he  calls  her,  and  evidently  in  reply  to 
applications  of  her  own,  which  have  gone  the  way 
of  all  waste  paper,  and  lighted  Dick's  pipes,  which 
were  smoked  a  hundred  and  forty  years  ago — he 
sends  his  wife  now  a  guinea,  then  a  half-guinea, 

25  then  a  couple  of  guineas,  then  half  a  pound  of  tea; 
and  again  no  money  and  no  tea  at  all,  but  a  prom- 
ise that  his  darling  Prue  shall  have  some  in  a  day 
or  two:  or  a  request,  perhaps,  that  she  will  send 
over  his  night-gown  and  shaving-plate  to  the  tem- 

3oporary  lodging  where  the  nomadic  Captain  is  lying, 
hidden  from  the  bailiffs.  Oh  that  a  Christian  hero 
and  late  Captain  in  Lucas's  should  be  afraid  of  a 


130  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

dirty  sheriff's  officer!     That  the  pink  and  pride  of 
chivalry  should  turn  pale  before  a  writ!     It  stands 
to   record   in   poor   Dick's   own   handwriting — the 
queer  collection  is  preserved  at  the  British  Museum 
to  this  present  day — that  the  rent  of  the  nuptial  5 
house  in  Jermyn  Street,  sacred  to  unutterable  ten- 
derness   and    Prue,    and    three    doors    from    Bury 
Street,  was  not  paid  until  after  the  landlord  had 
put  in  an  execution  on  Captain  Steele's  furniture. 
Addison  sold  the  house  and  furniture  at  Hampton,  10 
and,  after  deducting  the  sum  which  his  incorrigible 
friend  was  indebted  to  him,  handed  over  the  residue 
of  the  proceeds  of  the  sale  to  poor  Dick,  who  wasn't 
in  the  least  angry  at  Addison's  summary  proceed- 
ing, and  I  dare  say  was  very  glad  of  any  sale  or  15 
execution,  the  result  of  which  was  to  give  him  a 
little    ready    money.      Having   a   small     house   in 
Jermyn   Street  for  which  he  couldn't  pay,   and  a 
country  house  at  Hampton  on  which  he  had  bor- 
rowed money,  nothing  must  content  Captain  Dick  20 
but  the  taking,  in  171 2,  a  much  finer,  larger,  and 
grander  house  in  Bloomsbury  Square:    where  his 
unhappy  landlord  got  no  better  satisfaction  than 
his  friend  in  Saint  James's,  and  where  it  is  recorded 
that  Dick  giving  a  grand  entertainment,  had  a  half-  25 
dozen  queer-looking  fellows  in  livery  to  wait  upon 
his  noble  guests,  and  confessed  that  his  servants 
were  bailiffs  to  a  man.     "  I  fared  like  a  distressed 
prince,"    the    kindly    prodigal    writes,    generously    . 
complimenting  Addison  for  his  assistance  in  the  3o 
Tatlcr, — "  I  fared  like  a  distressed  prince,  who  calls 
in  a  powerful  neighbour  to  his  aid.     I  was  undone 


STEELE  131 

by  my  auxiliary;  when  I  had  once  called  him  in, 
I  could  not  subsist  without  dependence  on  him." 
Poor  needy  Prince  of  Bloomsbury!  think  of  him 
in  his  palace  with  his  allies  from  Chancery  Lane 
5  ominously  guarding  him. 

All  sorts  of  stories  are  told  indicative  of  his  reck- 
lessness and  his  good-humour.  One  narrated  by 
Doctor  Hoadly  is  exceedingly  characteristic;  it 
shows  the  life  of  the  time;    and  our  poor  friend 

10  very  weak,  but  very  kind  both  in  and  out  of  his 
cups. 

"  My  father,"  says  Doctor  John  Hoadly,  the 
Bishop's  son,  '*  when  Bishop  of  Bangor,  was,  by 
invitation,  present  at  one  of  the  Whig  meetings, 

15  held  at  the  'Trumpet,'  in  Shire  Lane,  when  Sir 
Richard,  in  his  zeal,  rather  exposed  himself,  hav- 
ing the  double  duty  of  the  day  upon  him,  as  well 
to  celebrate  the  immortal  memory  of  King  William, 
it  being  the  4th  November,  as  to  drink  his  friend 

20  Addison  up  to  conversation  pitch,  whose  phleg- 
matic constitution  was  hardly  warmed  for  society 
by  that  time.  Steele  was  not  fit  for  it.  Two  re- 
markable circumstances  happened.  John  Sly,  the 
hatter  of  facetious  memory,  was  in  the  house;   and 

25  John,  pretty  mellow,  took  it  into  his  head  to  come 
into  the  company  on  his  knees,  with  a  tankard  of 
ale  in  his  hand  to  drink  off  to  the  immortal  memory, 
and  to  return  in  the  same  manner.  Steele,  sitting 
next  my  father,  whispered  him — Do  laugh.     It  is 

30  humanity  to  laugh.  Sir  Richard,  in  the  evening,  be- 
ing too  much  in  the  same  condition,  was  put  into  a 
chair,  and  sent  home.     Nothing  would  serve  him 


132  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

but  being  carried  to  the  Bishop  of  Bangor's,  late  as 
it  was.  However,  the  chairman  carried  him  home, 
and  got  him  upstairs,  when  his  great  complaisance 
would  wait  on  them  downstairs,  which  he  did,  and 
then  was  got  quietly  to  bed."  *  5 

There  is  another  amusing  story  which,  I  believe, 
that  renowned  collector,  Mr.  Joseph  Miller,  or  his 
successors,  have  incorporated  into  their  work.  Sir 
Richard  Steele,  at  a  time  when  he  was  much  oc- 
cupied with  theatrical  affairs,  built  himself  a  pretty  lo 
private  theatre,  and  before!"  it  was  opened  to  his 
friends  and  guests,  was  anxious  to  try  whether  the 
hall  was  well  adapted  for  hearing.  Accordingly  he 
placed  himself  in  the  most  remote  part  of  the  gal- 
lery, and  begged  the  carpenter  who  had  built  the  15 
house  to  speak  up  from  the  stage.  The  man  at 
first  said  that  he  was  unaccustomed  to  public  speak- 
ing, and  did  not  know  what  to  say  to  his  honour; 
but  the  good-natured  knight  called  out  to  him  to 
say  whatever  was  uppermost;  and,  after  a  moment,  20 
the  carpenter  began,  in  a  voice  perfectly  audible: 
"Sir  Richard  Steele!  "  he  said,  "for  three  months 
past  me  and  my  men  has  been  a  working  in  this 
theatre,  and  we've  never  seen  the  colour  of  your 
honour's  money:  w.e  will  be  very  much  obliged  if*5 
you'll  pay  it  directly,  for  until  you  do  we  won't 
drive  in  another  nail."     Sir  Richard  said  that  his 

*  Of  this  famous  Bishop,  Steele  wrote —  • 

"  Virtue  with   so  much  ease  on   Bangor  sits. 
All  faults  he  pardons,  though  he  none  commits."  3^ 

This  couplet  was  sent  to  Hoadly  next  day  in  an  apologetic  letter. 


STEELE  133 

friend's  elocution  was  perfect,  but  that  he  didn't 
like  his  subject  much. 

The  great  charm  of  Steele's  writing  is  its  natural- 
ness. He  wrote  so  quickly  and  carelessly  that  he 
5  was  forced  to  make  the  reader  his  confidant,  and 
had  not  the  time  to  deceive  him.  He  had  a  small 
share  of  book-learning,  but  a  vast  acquaintance 
with  the  world.  He  had  known  men  and  taverns. 
He  had  lived  with  gownsmen,  with  troopers,  with 

10  gentlemen  ushers  of  the  Court,  with  men  and 
women  of  fashion ;  with  authors  and  wits,  with  the 
inmates  of  the  spunging-houses,  and  with  the  fre- 
quenters of  all  the  clubs  and  coflfee-houses  in  the 
town.     He  was  liked  in  all  company  because  he 

15  liked  it;   and  you  like  to  see  his  enjoyment  as  you 

like  to  see  the  glee  of  a  boxful  of  children  at  the 

;     pantomime.      He    was    not    of    those    lonely    ones 

cf  the  earth  whose  greatness  obliged  them  to  be 

solitary;  on  the  contrary,  he  admired,  I  think,  more 

2ot!ian  any  man  who  ever  wrote;  and  full  of  hearty 
applause  and  sympathy,  wins  upon  you  by  calling 
you  to  share  his  delight  and  good-humour.  His 
laugh  rings  through  the  whole  house.  He  must 
have  been  invaluable  at  a  tragedy,  and  have  cried  as 

25  much  as  the  most  tender  young  lady  in  the  boxes. 
He  has  a  relish  for  beauty  and  goodness  wherever 
he  meets  it.  He  admired  Shakspeare  affectionately, 
and  more  than  any  man  of  his  time:  and  according 
to  his  generous  expansive  nature,  called  upon  all 

30  his  company  to  like  what  he  liked  himself.  He  did 
not  damn  with  faint  praise :  he  was  in  the  world  and 
of    it;     and    his    enjoyment    of    lite    presents    the 


134  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

strangest  contrast  to  Swift's  savage  indignation  and 
Addison's  lonely  serenity.*     Permit  me  to  read  to 

*  Here  we  have  some  of  li:     later  letters: — 

To  Lady  Steele. 

"  Hampton  Court:    March  i6,  1716-17.        c 
"  Dear    Prue,— If    you    have    written    anything    to    me    which    I 
should   have   received  last   night,   I    beg  your   pardon   that   I   cannot 
answer   till   the   next   post.  .  .  .  Your   son   at   the   present   writing   is 
mighty   well    employed   in   tumbling   on   the   floor   of  the  room,   and 
sweeping    the    sand    with    a    feather.      He    grows    a    most    delightful  10 
child,    and    very    full    of   play   and    spirit.      He    is   also   a    very   great 
scholar:     he    can    read    his    primer;     and    I    have   brought    down   my 
Virgil.      He    makes   most    shrewd    remarks   about   the    pictures.     We 
are   very   intimate   friends    and    playfellows.      He   begins   to    be    very 
ragged;     and   I   hope   I   shall   be  pardoned  if  I   equip  him  with   new  1 5 
clothes  and   frocks,   or   what   Mrs.    Evans   and   I    shall   think   for   his 
service." 

To  Lady  Steele. 

[Undated.] 
"  You  tell  me  you  want  a  little  flattery  from   me.     I  assure  you   1  20 
know  no  one  who  deserves  so  much  commendation  as  yourself,  and 
to  whom  saying  the  best  things  would  be  so  little  like  flattery.     The 
thing  speaks  for  itself,  considering  you  as  a  very  handsome  woman 
that   loves   retirement — one   who    does   not   want   wit,   and   yet   is   ex- 
tremely   sincere;     and    so    I    could    go    through    all    the   vices   which  ^5 
attend  the  good  qualities  of  other  people,  of  which  you  are  exempt. 
But,    indeed,    though    you    have    every    perfection,    you    have    an    ex- 
travagant   fault,  -which    almost    frustrates    the    good    in    you    to    me; 
and  that  is,  that  you  do  not  love  to  dress,  to  appear,  to  shine  out, 
even    at    my   request,   and    to    make    me   proud   of   you,    or   rather   to  30 
indulge  the  pride  I  have  that  you  are  mine.  .  .  . 

"  Your  most  affectionate  obsequious  husband, 

"  Richard  Steele." 

"  A   quarter  of   Molly's   schooling   is   paid.     The   children   are  per- 
-ectly  well."  35 

To  Lady  Steele. 

"  March  26,  1717. 
"  My    dearest    Prue, — I    have    received    yours,    wherein    you    give 
me  the   sensible  affliction  of  telling  me   enow  of  the   continual   pain 
in  your  head.  .  .  .  When   I   lay  in  your  place,  and  on  your  pillow,   I  40 
assure  you  I  fell  into  tears  last  night,  to  think  that  my  charming 


STEELE  135 

you  a  passage  from  each  writer,  curiously  indicative 
of  his  peculiar  humour:  the  subject  is  the  same,  and 
the  mood  the  very  gravest.  We  have  said  that  upon 
all  the  actions  of  man,  the  most  trifling  and  the 
5  most  solemn,  the  humourist  takes  upon  himself  to 
comment.  All  readers  of  our  old  masters  know  the 
terrible  lines  of  Swift,  in  which  he  hints  at 
his  philosophy  and  describes  the  end  of  man- 
kind * : — 


10  "  Amazed,  confused,  its  fate  unknown. 

The  world  stood  trembling  at  Jove's  throne; 
While   each   pale   sinner   hung  his   head, 
Jove,  nodding,  shook  the  heavens  and  said: 
'  Offending  race  of  human  kind, 

15  By  nature,  reason,  learning,  blind; 

You  who  through  frailty  stepped  aside. 
And  you  who  never  err'd  through  pride; 
You  who  in  different  sects  were  shamm'd. 
And  come  to  see  each  other  damn'd; 

20  (So  some  folk  told  you,  but  they  knew 

No  more  of  Jove's  designs  than  you;) 
The  world's  mad  business  now  is  o'er, 
And  I  resent  your  freaks  no  more; 
/  to  such  blockheads  set  my  wit, 

25  I  damn  such  fools — go,  go,  you're  bit  ! '  " 

little  insolent  might  be  then  awake  and  in  pain;    and  took  it  to  be 
a  sin  to   go  to   sleep. 

"  For  this  tender  passion  towards  you,   I  pust  be  contented  that 
your  Prucshxp  will  condescend  to  call  yourself  my  well-wisher.  .  .  ." 

oQ  At  the  time  when  the  above  later  letters  were  written.  Lady  Steele 
was  in  W^ales,  looking  after  her  estate  there.  Steele,  about  this  time, 
was  much  occupied  with  a  project  for  conveying  fish  alive,  by 
which,  as  he  constantly  assures  his  wife,  he  firmly  believed  he 
should  make  his  forttine.     It  did  not  succeed,  however. 

35  Lady  Steele  died  in  December  of  the  succeeding  year.  She  lies 
buried  in  Westminster  Abbey. 

*'  Lord  Chesterfield  sends  these  verses  to  Voltaire  in  a  character- 
istic letter. 


136  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

Addison  speaking  on  the  very  same  theme,  but 
with  how  different  a  voice,  says,  in  his  famous  paper 
on  Westminster  Abbey  (Spectator,  No.  26): — 

"  For  my  own  part,  though  I  am  always  serious, 
I  do  not  know  what  it  is  to  be  melancholy,  and  can  5 
therefore  take  a  view  of  nature  in  her  deep  and 
solemn  scenes,  with  the  same  pleasure  as  in  her 
most  gay  and  delightful  ones.  When  I  look  upon 
the  tombs  of  the  great,  every  emotion  of  envy  dies 
within  me ;  wdien  I  read  the  epitaphs  of  the  beauti- 10 
ful,  every  inordinate  desire  goes  out;  when  I  meet 
with  the  grief  of  parents  on  a  tombstone,  my  heart 
melts  with  compassion;  when  I  see  the  tomb  of  the 
parents  themselves,  I  consider  the  vanity  of  griev- 
ing for  those  we  must  quickly  follow."  ^5 

(I  have  owned  that  I  do  not  think  Addison's 
heart  melted  very  much,  or  that  he  indulged  very 
inordinately  in  the  "  vanity  of  grieving.") 

"  When,"  he  goes  on,  "  when  I  see  kings  lying 
by  those  who  deposed  them:  when  I  consider  rival  20 
wits  placed  side  by  side,  or  the  holy  men  that  di- 
vided the  world  with  their  contests  and  disputes — 
I  reflect  with  sorrow  and  astonishment  on  the  little 
competitions,  factions,  and  debates  of  mankind. 
And,  when  I  read  the  several  dates  on  the  tombs  of  =5 
some  that  died  yesterday,  and  some  six  hundred 
years  ago,  I  consider  that  great  day  when  we  shall 
all  of  us  be  contemporaries,  and  make  our  appear- 
ance together."  , 

Our  third  humourist  comes  to  speak  on  the  same  30 


STEELE  127 

subject.  You  will  have  observed  in  the  previous 
extracts  the  characteristic  humour  of  each  writer — 
the  subject  and  the  contrast — the  fact  of  Death,  and 
the  play  of  individual  thought  by  which  each 
5  comments  on  it,  and  now  hear  the  third  writer — 
death,  sorrow,  and  the  grave,  being  for  the  moment 
also  his  theme. 

"  The  first  sense  of  sorrow  I  ever  knew,"  Steele 
says  in  the  Tailer,  "  was    upon    the    death  of  my 

lo  father,  at  which  time  I  was  not  quite  five  years  of 
age:  but  was  rather  amazed  at  what  all  the  house 
meant,  than  possessed  of  a  real  understanding 
why  nobody  would  play  with  us.  I  remember  I 
went  into  the  room  where  his  body  lay,  and  my 

15  mother  sate  weeping  alone  by  it.  I  had  my  battle- 
dore in  my  hand,  and  fell  a  beating  the  coffin  and 
calling  papa;  for,  I  know  not  how,  I  had  some  idea 
that  he  was  locked  up  there.  My  mother  caught 
me  in  her  arms,  and,  transported  beyond  all  pa- 

2otience  of  the  silent  grief  she  was  before  in,  she  al- 
most smothered  me  in  her  embraces,  and  told  me 
in  a  flood  of  tears,  '  Papa  could  not  hear  me,  and 
would  play  with  me  no  more:  for  they  were  going 
to  put  him  under  ground,  whence  he  would  never 

25  come  to  us  again.'  She  was  a  very  beautiful  woman, 
of  a  noble  spirit,  and  there  was  a  dignity  in  her  grief, 
amidst  all  the  wildness  of  her  transport,  which  me- 
thought  struck  me  with  an  instinct  of  sorrow  that, 
before  I  was  sensible  what  it  was  to  grieve,  seized 

30  my  very  soul,  and  has  made  pity  the  v/eakness  of 
my  heart  ever  since." 


138  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

Can  there  be  three  more  characteristic  moods  of 
minds  and  men?  "  Fools,  do  you  know  anything 
of  this  mystery?  "  says  Swift,  stamping  on  a  grave, 
and  carrying  his  scorn  for  mankind  actually  beyond 
it.  "  Miserable  purblind  wretches,  how  dare  you  5 
to  pretend  to  comprehend  the  Inscrutable,  and  how 
can  your  dim  eyes  pierce  the  unfathomable  depths 
of  yonder  boundless  heaven?  "  Addison,  in  a  much 
kinder  language  and  gentler  voice,  utters  much  the 
same  sentiment:  and  speaks  of  the  rivalry  of  wits,  10 
and  the  contests  of  holy  men,  with  the  same  sceptic 
placidity.  "  Look  what  a  little  vain  dust  we  are," 
he  says,  smiling  over  the  tombstones;  and  catching, 
as  is  his  wont,  quite  a  divine  efifulgence  as  he  looks 
heavenward,  he  speaks,  in  words  of  inspiration  al-  15 
most,  of  "  the  Great  Day,  when  we  shall  all  of  us  be 
contemporaries,  and  make  our  appearance  to- 
gether." 

The  third,  whose  theme  is  Death,  too,  and  who 
will  speak  his  word  of  moral  as  Heaven  teaches  20 
him,  leads  you  up  to  his  father's  cofifin,  and  shows 
you  his  beautiful  mother  weeping,  and  himself  an 
unconscious  little  boy  wondering  at  her  side.     His 
own  natural  tears  flow  as  he  takes  your  hand  and 
confidingly  asks  your  sympathy.     "See  how  good 25 
and  innocent  and  beautiful  women  are,"  he  says; 
"  how  tender  little  children!     Let  us  love  these  and 
one  another,  brother — God  knows  we  have  need 
of  love  and  pardon."     So  it  is  each  looks  with  his 
own  eyes,  speaks  with  his  own  voice,  and  prays  his  30 
own  prayer. 

When  Steele  asks  your  sympathy  for  the  actors 


STEELE  139 

in  that  charming  scene  of  I.ove  and  Grief  and 
Death,  who  can  refuse  it?  One  yields  to  it  as  to  the 
frank  advance  of  a  child,  or  to  the  appeal  of  a 
woman.    A  man  is  seldom  more  manly  than  when 

she  is  what  you  call  unmanned — the  source  of  his 
emotion  is  championship,  pity,  and  courage;  the 
instinctive  desire  to  cherish  those  who  are  innocent 
and  unhappy,  and  defend  those  who  are  tender  and 
weak.    If  Steele  is  not  our  friend  he  is  nothing.    He 

10  is  by  no  means  the  most  brilliant  of  wits  nor  the 
deepest  of  thinkers:  but  he  is  our  friend:  we  love 
him,  as  children  love  with  an  A,  because  he  is 
amiable.  Who  likes  a  man  best  because  he  is  the 
cleverest  or  the  wisest  of  mankind;    or  a  woman 

15  because  she  is  the  most  virtuous,  or  talks  French 
or  plays  the  piano  better  than  the  rest  of  her  sex? 
I  own  to  liking  Dick  Steele  the  man,  and  Dick 
Steele  the  author,  nutch  better  than  much  better 
men  and  much  better  authors. 

20  The  misfortune  regarding  Steele  is,  that  most 
part  of  the  company  here  present  must  take  his 
amiability  upon  hearsay,  and  certainly  can't  make 
his  intimate  acquaintance.  Not  that  Steele  was 
worse  than  his  time;    on  the  contrary,  a  far  better, 

25  truer,  and  high-hearted  man  than  most  who  lived 
in  it.  But  things  were  done  in  that  society,  and 
names  were  named,  which  would  make  you  shudder 
now.  What  would  be  the  sensation  of  a  polite 
youth  of    the    present  day,  if  at  a  ball  he  saw  the 

30  young  object  of  his  affections  taking  a  box  out  of 
her  pocket  and  a  pinch  of  snufY:  or  if  at  dinner, 
by  the  charmer's  side,  she  deliberately  put  her  knife 


140  MNGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

into  her  mouth?  If  she  cut  her  mother's  throat 
with  it,  mamma  woukl  scarcely  be  more  shocked. 
I  alkide  to  these  pecuHarities  of  bygone  times  as 
an  excuse  for  my  favourite  Steele,  who  was  not 
worse,  and  often  much  more  delicate  than  his  5 
neighbours. 

There  exists  a  curious  document  *  descriptive  of 
the  manners  of  the  last  age,  which  describes  most 
minutely  the  amusements  and  occupations  of  per- 
sons of  fashion  in  London  at  the  time  of  which  we  lo 
are  speaking;  the  time  of  Swift,  and  Addison,  and 
Steele. 

When  Lord  Sparkish,  Tom  Neverout,  and  Col- 
onel   Alwit,    the    immortal    personages    of    Swift's 
polite  conversation,   came   to  breakfast    with    my  15 
Lady  Smart,  at  eleven  o'clock  in  the  morning,  my 
Lord  Smart  was  absent  at  the  levee.    His  Lordship 
was  at  home  to  dinner  at  three  o'clock  to  receive 
his  guests;   and  we  may  sit  down  to  this  meal,  like 
the  Barmecide's,  and  see  the  fops  of  the  last  century  20 
before  us.     Seven  of  them  sat  down  at  dinner,  and 
were  joined  by  a  country  baronet  who  told  them 
they  kept  Court  hours.     These  persons  of  fashion 
began  their  dinner  with  a  sirloin  of  beef,  fish,  a 
shoulder  of  veal,  and  a  tongue.     My  Lady  Smart  25 
carved  the  sirloin,  my  Lady  Answerall  helped  the 
fish,  and  the  gallant  Colonel  cut  the  shoulder  of 
veal.     All  made  a  considerable  inroad  on  the  sir- 
loin and  the  shoulder  of  veal  with  the  exception  of 
Sir  John,  who  had  no  appetite,  having  already  par-3o 
Uken  of  a  beef-steak  and  two  mugs  of  ale,  besides 

*  Swift's  "  Polite  Conversation." 


STEELE  141 

a  tankard  of  March  beer  as  soon  as  he  got  out  of 
bed.  They  drank  claret,  which  the  master  of  the 
house  said  should  always  be  drunk  after  fish;  and 
my  Lord  Smart  particularly  recommended  some 
5  excellent  cider  to  my  Lord  Sparkish,  which  occa- 
sioned some  brilliant  remarks  from  that  nobleman. 
When  the  host  called  for  wine,  he  nodded  to  one 
or  other  of  his  guests,  and  said,  "  Tom  Neverout, 
my  service  to  you." 

10  After  the  first  course  came  almond-pudding, 
fritters,  which  the  Colonel  took  with  his  hands  out 
of  the  dish,  in  order  to  help  the  brilliant  Miss 
Notable;  chickens,  black  puddings,  and  soup;  and 
Lady  Smart,  the  elegant  mistress  of  the  mansion, 

15  finding  a  skewer  in  a  dish,  placed  it  in  her  plate  with 
directions  that  it  should  be  carried  down  to  the 
cook  and  dressed  for  the  cook's  own  dinner.  Wine 
and  small  beer  were  drunk  during  the  second 
course;    and  when  the  Colonel  called  for  beer,  he 

20  called  the  butler  Friend,  and  asked  whether  the  beer 
was  good.  Various  jocular  remarks  passed  from 
the  gentlefolk  to  the  servants;  at  breakfast  several 
persons  had  a  word  and  a  joke  for  Mrs.  Betty,  my 
Lady's    maid,    who    warmed  the   cream   and  had 

25  charge  of  the  canister  (the  tea  cost  thirty  shillings 
a  pound  in  those  days).  When  my  Lady  Sparkish 
sent  her  footman  out  to  my  Lady  Match  to  come 
at  six  o'clock  and  play  at  quadrille,  her  Ladyship 
warned  the  man  to  follow  his  nose,  and  if  he  fell  by 

30  the  way  not  to  stay  to  get  up  again.  And  when  the 
gentlemen  asked  the  hall-porter  if  his  lady  was  at 
home,  that  functionary  replied,  with   manly  wag- 


142  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

gishness,  "  She  was  at  home  just  now,  but  she's  not 
gone  out  yet." 

After  the  puddings,  sweet  and  black,  the  fritters 
and  soup,  came  the  third  course,  of  which  the  chief 
dish  was  a  hot  venison  pasty,  which  was  put  before  5 
Lord  Smart,  and  carved  by  that  nobleman.  Besides 
the  pasty,  there  was  a  hare,  a  rabbit,  some  pigeons, 
partridges,  a  goose,  and  a  ham.  Beer  and  wine 
were  freely  imbibed  during  this  course,  the  gentle- 
men always  pledging  somebody  with  every  glass  10 
which  they  drank ;  and  by  this  time  the  conversation 
between  Tom  Neverout  and  Miss  Notable  had 
grown  so  brisk  and  liively,  that  the  Derbyshire  baro- 
net began  to  think  the  young  gentlewoman  was 
Tom's  sweetheart:  on  which  Miss  remarked,  that  15 
she  loved  Tom  "  like  pie."  After  the  goose,  some 
of  the  gentlewomen  took  a  dram  of  brandy,  "  which 
was  very  good  for  the  wholesomes,"  Sir  John  said: 
and  now  having  had  a  tolerably  substantial  dinner, 
honest  Lord  Smart  bade  the  butler  bring  up  the  20 
great  tankard  full  of  October  to  Sir  John.  The 
great  tankard  was  passed  from  hand  to  hand  and 
mouth  to  mouth,  but  when  pressed  by  the  noble 
host  upon  the  gallant  Tom  Neverout,  he  said,  "  No, 
faith,  my  Lord;  I  like  your  wine,  and  won't  put  a  25 
churl  upon  a  gentleman.  Your  honour's  claret  is 
good  enough  for  me."  And  so,  the  dinner  over,  the 
host  said,  "  Hang  saving,  bring  us  up  a  ha'porth  of 
cheese." 

The  cloth  was  now  taken  away,  and  a  bottle  of  30 
burgundy  was  set  down,  of  which  the  ladies  were 
invited  to  partake  before  they   went  to  their  lea. 


STEELE  143 

When  they  withdrew,  the  gentlemen  promised  to 
join  them  in  an  hour:  fresh  bottles  were  brought; 
the  "  dead  men,"  meaning  the  empty  bottles,  re- 
moved; and  "  D'you  hear,  John!  bring  clean 
5  glasses,"  my  Lord  Smart  said.  On  which  the  gal- 
lant Colonel  Alwit  said,  "  I'll  keep  my  glass;  for 
wine  is  the  best  hquor  to  wash  glasses  in." 

Aft^r  an  hour  the  gentlemen  joined  the  ladies, 
and  then  they  all  sat  and  played  quadrille  until  three 

10  o'clock  in  the  morning,  when  the  chairs  and  the 
flambeaux  came,  and  this  noble  company  went  to 
bed. 

Such  were  manners  six  or  seven  score  years  ago. 
I  draw  no  inference  from  this  queer  picture — let  all 

15  moralists  here  present  deduce  their  own.  Fancy 
the  moral  condition  of  that  society  in  which  a  lady 
of  fashion  joked  with  a  footman,  and  carved  a  sir- 
loin, and  provided  besides  a  great  shoulder  of  veal, 
a  goose,  hare,  rabbit,  chickens,  partridges,  black 

20 puddings,  and  a  ham  for  a  dinner  for  eight  Chris- 
tians. What — what  could  have  been  the  condition 
of  that  polite  world  in  which  people  openly  ate 
goose  after  almond-pudding,  and  took  their  soup 
in  the  middle  of  dinner?     Fancy  a  Colonel  in  the 

25  Guards  putting  his  hand  into  a  dish  of  bcignefs 
d'abricot  and  helping  his  neighbour,  a  young  lady 
du  mondc!  Fancy  a  noble  lord  calling  out  to  the 
servants,  before  the  ladies  at  his  table,  "  Hang  ex- 
pense, bring  us  a  ha'porth  of  cheese!  "    Such  were 

30  the  ladies  of  Saint  James's — such  were  the  fre- 
quenters of  "  White's  Chocolate  House,"  when 
Swift  used  to  visit  it,  and  Steele  described  it  as  the 


144  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

centre  of  pleasure,  gallantry,  and  entertainment,  a 
hundred  and  forty  years  go! 

Dennis,  who  ran  amuck  at  the  literary  society  of 
his  day,  falls  foul  of  poor  Steele,  and  thus  depicts 
him : —  5 

"  Sir  John  Edgar,  of  the  county  of in  Ire- 
land, is  of  a  middle  stature,  broad  shoulders,  thick 
legs,  a  shape  like  the  picture  of  somebody  over  a 
farmer's  chimney — a  short  chin,  a  short  nose,  a 
short  forehead,  a  broad  flat  face,  and  a  dusky  coun-  lo 
tenance.  Yet  with  such  a  face  and  such  a  shape, 
he  discovered  at  sixty  that  he  took  himself  for  a 
beauty,  and  appeared  to  be  more  mortified  at  be- 
ing told  that  he  was  ugly,  than  he  was  by  any  re-  ■ 
flection  made  upon  his  honour  or  understanding.      15 

"  He  is  a  gentleman  born,  witness  himself,  of 
very  honourable  family ;  certainly  of  a  very  ancient 
one,  for  his  ancestors  flourished  in  Tipperary  long 
before  the  English  ever  set  foot  in  Ireland.  He 
has  testimony  of  this  more  authentic  than  the  Her- 20 
aids'  OfBce,  or  any  human  testimony.  For  God 
has  marked  him  more  abundantly  than  he  did  Cain, 
and  stamped  his  native  country  on  his  face,  his  un- 
derstanding, his  writings,  his  actions,  his  passions, 
and,  above  all,  his  vanity.  The  Hibernian  brogue  25 
is  still  upon  all  these,  though  long  habit  and  length 
of  days  have  worn  it  ofT  his  tongue."  * 

•  Steele     replied     to     Dennis     in     an     "  Answer     to     a     Whimsical 
Pamphlet,    called   the   Character   of   Sir  John    Edgar."     What    Steele 
had    to    say    against    the    cross-grained    old    Critic    discovers    a    great  30 
deal   of  humour: — 

"  Thou  never  didst  let  the  sun  into  thy  garret,  for  fear  he  should 
bring  a  bailiff  along  with  him.  .  .  . 


STEELE  145 

Although  this  portrait  is  the  work  of  a  man  who 
was  neither  the  friend  of  Steele  nor  of  any  other 
man  alive,  yet  there  is  a  dreadful  resemblance  to 
the  original  in  the  savage  and  exaggerated  traits  of 

5  the  caricature,  and  everybody  who  knows  him 
must  recognise  Dick  Steele.  Dick  set  about  almost 
all  the  undertakings  of  his  life  with  inadequate 
means,  and,  as  he  took  and  furnished  a  house  with 
the  most  generous  intentions  towards  his  friends, 

10  the  most  tender  gallantry  towards  his  wife,  and 
with  this  only  drawback,  that  he  had  not  where- 
withal to  pay  the  rent  when  quarter-day  came, — 

"  Your  years  are  about  sixty-five,  an  ugly  vinegar  face,  that  if 
you    had    any    command    you    would    be    obeyed    out    of    fear,    from 

15  your  ill-nature  pictured  there;  not  from  any  other  motive.  Your 
lieight  is  about  some  five  feet  five  inches.  You  see  I  can  give  your 
exact  measure  as  well  as  if  I  had  taken  your  dimension  with  a 
good  cudgel,  which  I  promise  you  to  do  as  soon  as  ever  I  have 
the  good  fortune  to  meet  you.  .  .  . 

20  "  Your  doughty  paunch  stands  before  you  like  a  firkin  of  butter, 
and  your  duck  legs  seem  to  be  cast  for  carrying  burdens. 

"  Thy  works  are  libels  upon  others,  and  satires  upon  thyself; 
and  while  they  bark  at  men  of  sense,  call  him  fool  and  knave  that 
wrote  them.     Thou  hast  a  great  antipathy  to  thy  own  species;    and 

25  hatest  the  sight  of  a  fool  but  in  thy  glass." 

Steele  had  been  kind  to  Dennis,  and  once  got  arrested  on  account 
of  a  pecuniary  service  which  he  did  him.  When  John  heard  of  the 
fact— " 'Sdeath  !"  cries  John;  "why  did  not  he  keep  out  of  the 
way  as  I  did  ?  " 

"O  The  "  Answer  "  concludes  by  mentioning  that  Cibber  had  ofifered 
Ten  Pounds  for  the  discovery  of  the  authorship  of  Dennis's 
pamphlet;  on  which,  says  Steele, — "  I  am  only  sorry  he  has  offered 
so  much,  because  the  twentieth  part  would  have  overvalued  his  whole 
carcase.     But   I   know   the  fellow  that  he   keeps  to   give   answers   to 

35  his  creditors  will  betray  him;  for  he  gave  me  his  word  to  bring 
officers  on  the  top  of  the  house  that  should  make  a  hole  through 
the  ceiling  of  his  garret,  and  so  bring  him  to  the  punishment  he 
deserves.  Some  people  think  this  expedient  out  of  the  way,  and  that 
he  would   make   his  escape*  upon   hearing  the  least   noise.     I    say   so 

40  too;  but  it  takes  him  up  half-an-hour  every  night  to  fortify  him- 
self with  his  old  hair  trunk,  two  or  three  joint-stools,  and  some 
other  lumber,  which  he  ties  together  with  cords  so  fast  that  it  takes 
him  up  the  same  time  in  the  morning  to  release  himself." 


14^  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

SO,  in  his  life  he  proposed  to  himself  the  most  mag- 
nificent schemes  of  virtue,  forbearance,  public  and 
private  good,  and  the  advancement  of  his  own  and 
the  national  religion;  but  when  he  had  to  pay  for 
these  articles — so  difficult  to  purchase  and  so  costly  5 
to  maintain — poor  Dick's  money  was  not  forth- 
coming: and  when  Virtue  called  with  her  little  bill, 
Dick  made  a  shuffling  excuse  that  he  could  not  see 
her  that  morning,  having  a  headache  from  being 
tipsy  over-night;  or  when  stern  Duty  rapped  at  the  10 
door  with  his  account,  Dick  was  absent  and  not 
ready  to  pay.  He  was  shirking  at  the  tavern;  or 
had  some  particular  business  (of  somebody's  else) 
at  the  ordinary;  or  he  was  in  hiding,  or  worse  than 
in  hiding,  in  the  lock-up  house.  What  a  situation  15 
for  a  man! — for  a  philanthropist — for  a  lover  of 
right  and  truth — for  a  magnificent  designer  and 
schemer!  Not  to  dare  to  look  in  the  face  the  Re- 
ligion which  he  adored  and  which  he  had  ofifended: 
to  have  to  shirk  down  back  lanes  and  alleys,  so  as  20 
to  avoid  the  friend  whom  he  loved  and  who  had 
trusted  him ;  to  have  the  house  which  he  had  in- 
tended for  his  wife,  whom  he  loved  passionately, 
and  for  her  Ladyship's  company  which  he  wished 
to  entertain  splendidly,  in  the  possession  of  a  2^ 
bailiff's  man ;  with  a  crowd  of  little  creditors, — 
grocers,  butchers,  and  small-coal  men — lingering 
round  the  door  with  their  bills  and  jeering  at  him. 
Alas  for  poor  Dick  Steele!  For  nobody  else,  of 
course.  There  is  no  man  or  woman  in  our  time  30 
who  makes  fine  projects  and  gives  them  up  from 
idleness  or  want  of  means.     When  duty  calls  upon 


STEELE  147 

US,  we  no  doubt  are  always  at  home  and  ready  to 
pay  that  grim  tax-gatherer.  When  zve  are  stricken 
with  remorse  and  promise  reform,  we  keep  our 
promise,  and  are  never  angry,  or  idle,  or  extrava- 

5  gant  any  more.  There  are  no  chambers  in  our 
hearts,  destined  for  family  friends  and  affections, 
and  now  occupied  by  some  Sin's  emissary  and 
bailiff  in  possession.  There  are  no  little  sins, 
shabby  peccadilloes,  importunate  remembrances,  or 

10  disappointed  holders  of  our  promises  to  reform, 
hovering  at  our  steps,  or  knocking  at  our  door!  Of 
course  not.  We  are  living  in  the  nineteenth  century; 
and  poor  Dick  Steele  stumbled  and  got  up  again, 
and  got  into  jail  and  out  again,  and  sinned  and  re- 

ispented,  and  loved -and  suffered,  and  lived  and  died, 
scores  of  years  ago.  Peace  be  with  him!  Let  us 
think  gently  of  one  who  was  so  gentle :  let  us  speak 
kindly  of  one  whose  own  breast  exuberated  with 
human  kindness. 


prior,  (Ba\?,  an&  pope 

Matthew  Prior  was  one    of    those    famous  and 
lucky  wits  of  the  auspicious  reign  of  Queen  Anne, 
whose  name  it  behoves  us  not  to  pass  over.     Mat 
was  a  world-philosopher  of  no  small  genius,  good-   5 
nature,   and   acumen.*      He   loved,    he    drank,    he 

*  Gay    calls    him — "  Dear    Prior  .  .  .  beloved    by    every    muse." — 
Mr.  Pope's  Welcome  from  Greece. 

Swift    and    Prior    were    very    intimate,    and    he    is    frequently    men- 
tioned in  the  "  Journal  to  Stella."     "  Mr.  Prior,"  says  Swift,  "  walks  lO 
to  make  himself  fat,  and  I  to  keep  myself  down.  .  .  .  We  often  walk 
round  the  park  together." 

In  Swift's  works  there  is  a  curious  tract  called  Remarks  on  the 
Characters  of  the  Court  of  Queen  Anne  [Scott's  edition,  vol.  xii.]. 
The  "  Remarks  "  are  not  by  the  Dean;  but  at  the  end  of  each  is  an  15 
addition  in  italics  from  his  hand,  and  these  are  always  characteristic. 
Thus,  to  the  Duke  of  Marlborough,  he  adds,  "  Detestably  covetous," 
&c.     Prior  is  thus  noticed — 

"  Matthew  Prior,  Esquire,   Commissioner  of  Trade. 

"  On  the  Queen's  accession  to  the  throne,  he  was  continued  in  20 
his  office;  is  very  well  at  Court  with  the  ministry,  and  is  an  entire 
creature  of  my  Lord  Jersey's,  whom  he  supports  by  his  advice;  is 
one  of  the  best  poets  in  England,  but  very  facetious  in  conversation. 
A  thin  hollow-looked  man,  turned  of  forty  years  old.  This  is  near 
the  truth."  25 

"  Yet  counting  as  far  as  to  fifty  his  years, 

His  virtues  and  vices  were  as  other  men's  are. 
High  hopes  he  conceived  and  he  smothered  great  fears. 
In  a  life  party-coloured— half  pleasure,  half  care. 

Not  to  business  a  drudge,  nor  to  faction  a  slave,  30 

He  strove  to  make  interest  and  freedom  agree; 

In   public  employments  industrious   and   grave, 
And  alone  with  his  friends,  Lord,  how  merry  was  he  I 

148 


PRIOR,  GA  Y,  AND    FOPE  149 

sang.  He  describes  himself,  in  one  of  his  lyrics, 
"in  a  little  Dutch  chaise  on  a  Saturday  night;  on 
his  left  hand  his  Horace,  and  a  friend  on  his  right," 
going  out  of  town  from  the  Hague  to  pass  that 
5  evening  and  the  ensuing  Sunday  boozing  at  a 
Spfelhaus  with  his  companions,  perhaps  bobbing 
for  perch  in  a  Dutch  canal,  and  noting  down,  in  a 
strain  and  with  a  grace  not  unworthy  of  his  Epi- 
curean master,  the  charms  of  his  idleness,  his  re- 

lo  treat,  and  his  Batavian  Chloe.  A  vintner's  son  * 
in  Whitehall,  and  a  distinguished  pupil  of  Busby 
of  the  Rod,  Prior  attracted  some  notice  by  writing 
verses  at  Saint  John's  College,  Cambridge,  and, 
coming  up  to  town,  aided  Montague  f  in  an  attack 

15  on  the  noble  old  English  lion  John  Dryden;  in 
ridicule  of  whose  work,  "  The  Hind  and  the 
Panther,"  he  brought  out  that  remarkable  and  fa- 
mous burlesque,  "  The  Town  and  Country  Mouse." 
Aren't  you  all  acquainted  with  it?     Have  you  not 

20  all  got  it  by  heart?  What!  have  you  never  heard 
of  it?  See  what  fame  is  made  of!  The  wonderful 
part    of    the    satire  was,  that,  as  a  natural  conse- 


Now  in  equipage  stately,  now  humble  on  foot, 

Both  fortunes  he  tried,  but  to  neither  would  trust; 
-5  And  whirled  in  the  round  as  the  wheel  turned  about, 

He  found  riches  had  wings,  and  knew  man  was  but  dust." 
— Prior's  Poems.     [For  my  own  monument.'] 
*  [He  was  a  joiner's  son.     His  uncle  was  a  vintner,  and  kept  the 
Rhenish  Wine  House  in  Channel  (now  Cannon)   Row,  Westminster.] 
30     t  "  Thej-    joined    to    produce    a    parody,    entitled     The    Town    and 
Country  Mouse,   part  of  which   Mr.    Bayes   is   supposed  to  gratify  his 
old   friends,   Smart  and  Johnson,   by  repeating  to   them.     The   piece 
is  therefore  founded  upon  the  twice-told  jest  of  the  '  Rehearsal.'  .  .  . 
There    is    nothing    new    or    original    in    the    idea.  ...  In    this    piece, 
35  Prior,  though  the  younger  man,  seems  to  have  had  by  far  the  largest 
share." — Scott's  Dryden,  vol.  i.  p.  330. 


150  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

quence  of  "  The  Town  and  Country  Mouse," 
Matthew  Prior  was  made  Secretary  of  Embassy  at 
the  Hague!  I  beHeve  it  is  dancing,  rather  than 
singing,  which  distinguishes  the  young  EngHsh 
diplomatists  of  the  present  day;  and  have  seen  them  5 
in  various  parts  perform  that  part  of  their  duty  very 
finely.  In  Prior's  time  it  appears  a  different  ac- 
complishment led  to  preferment.*  Could  you  write 
a  copy  of  Alcaics?  that  was  the  question.  Could 
you  turn  out  a  neat  epigram  or  two?  Could  you  10 
compose  "The  Town  and  Country  Mouse"?  It 
is  manifest  that,  by  the  possession  of  this  faculty, 
the  most  difficult  treaties,  the  laws  of  foreign  na- 
tions, and  the  interests  of  our  own,  are  easily  under- 
stood. Prior  rose  in  the  diplomatic  service,  and  15 
said  good  things  that  proved  his  sense  and  his 
spirit.  When  the  apartments  at  Versailles  were 
shown  to  him,  with  the  victories  of  Louis  XIV. 
painted  on  the  walls,  and  Prior  was  asked  whether 
the  palace  of  the  King  of  England  had  any  such  20 
decorations,  "  The  monuments  of  my  master's  ac- 
tions," Mat  said,  of  William,  whom  he  cordially 
revered,  "  are  to  be  seen  everywhere  except  in  his 
own  house."  Bravo,  Mat!  Prior  rose  to  be  full 
ambassador  at  Paris,t  where  he  somehow  was  25 
cheated  out  of  his  ambassadorial  plate;  and  in  an 
heroic  poem,  addressed  by  him  to  her  late  lamented 
Majesty,  Queen  Anne,  Mat  makes  some  magnifi- 

*  [It  is  doubtful,  however,  whether  Prior's  appointment  had  much 
to  do  with  his  literary  reputation.]  3^ 

t  "  He  was  to  have  been  in  the  same  commission  with  the  Duke 
of  Shrewsbury,  but  that  that  nobleman,"  says  Johnson,  "  refused  to 
be  associated  with  one  so  meanly  born.     Prior  therefore  continued  to 


PRIOR,  GAY,  AND    POPE  15 1 

cent  allusions  to  these  dishes  and  spoons,  of  which 
Fate  had  deprived  him.  All  that  he  wants,  he  says, 
is  her  Majesty's  picture;  without  that  he  can't  be 
happy. 

5      "Thee,  gracious  Anne,  thee  present  I  adore: 

Thee,  Queen  of  Peace,  if  Time  and  Fate  have  power 
Higher  to  raise  the  glories  of  thy  reign, 
In  words  sublimer  and  a  nobler  strain 
May  future  bards  the  mighty  theme  rehearse. 
lo         Here.  Stator  Jove,  and  Phoebus,  king  of  verse. 
The  votive  tablet  I  suspend." 

With  that  word  the  poem  stops  abruptly.  The 
votive  tablet  is  suspended  for  ever,  like  Mahomet's 
coffin.      News    came    that    the    Queen    was    dead. 

15  Stator  Jove,  and  Phoebus,  king  of  verse,  were  left 
there,  hovering  to  this  day,  over  the  votive  tablet. 
The  picture  was  never  got,  any  more  than  the 
spoons  and  dishes:  the  inspiration  ceased,  the 
verses   were   not   wanted — the   ambassador   wasn't 

20  wanted.  Poor  Mat  was  recalled  from  his  embassy, 
suffered  disgrace  along  with  his  patrons,  lived  un- 
der a  sort  of  cloud  ever  after,  and  disappeared'  in 
Essex.  When  deprived  of  all  his  pensions  and 
emoluments,  the  hearty  and  generous  Oxford  pen- 

25  act  without  a  title  till  the  Duke's  return  next  year  to  England,  and 
then  he  assumed  the  style  and  dignity  of  ambassador." 

He  had   been   thinking   of  slights   of  this  sort  when   he  wrote  his 
Epitaph : — 

"  Nobles  and  heralds,  by  your  leave, 
3«»  Here  lies  what  once  was  Matthew  Prior, 

The  son  of  Adam  and  of  Eve: 

Can   Bourbon  or   Nassau  claim  higher  ?  " 

But,  in  this  case,  the  old  prejudice  got  the  better  of  the  old  joke. 


152  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

sioned  him.*  They  played  for  gallant  stakes — the 
bold  men  of  those  days — and  lived  and  gave  splen- 
didly. 

Johnson  quotes  from  Spence  a  legend,  that  Prior, 
after  spending  an  evening  with  Harley,  St.  John,  5 
Pope,  and  Swift,  would  go  off  and  smoke  a  pipe 
with  a  couple  of  friends  of  his,  a  soldier  and  his 
wife,  in  Long  Acre.  Those  who  have  not  read  his 
late  Excellency's  poems  should  be  warned  that 
they  smack  not  a  little  of  the  conversation  of  his  10 
Long  Acre  friends.  Johnson  speaks  slightingly  of 
his  lyrics;  but  with  due  deference  to  the  great 
Samuel,  Prior's  seem  to  me  amongst  the  easiest, 
the  richest,  the  most  charmingly  humourous  of 
English  lyrical  poems.*     Horace  is  always  in  his^S 

*  [Prior's  poems  published  (in  folio)  bj'  subscription  brought  him 
£4000.  Lord  ITarley  (not  his  father,  the  Earl  of  Oxford)  added 
£4000  to  this  for  the  purchase  of  an  estate  (Down  Hall)  in  Essex.] 

*  His  epigrams  have  the  genuine  sparkle:— 

The  Remedy  zvorse  than  the  Disease.  20 

"  I  sent  for  Radcliff;    was  so  ill, 

That  other  doctors  gave  me  over: 
He  felt  my  pulse,   prescribed  his  pill. 
And  I  was  likely  to  recover. 

But  when   the  wit  began  to  wheeze,  ^5 

And  wine  had  warmed  the  politician, 
Cured  yesterday  of  my  disease, 

I  died  last  night  of  my  physician." 


30 


'Yes,  every  poet  is  a  fool; 

By  demonstration  Ned  can  show  it; 
Happy  could  Ned's  inverted  rule 
Prove  every  fool  to  be  a  poet." 

'  On  his  deathbed  poor  Lubin  lies, 
His   spouse  is  in  despair; 
With  frequent  sobs  and  mutual  cries  35 

They  both  express  their  care. 


PRIOR,  GAY,  AND    POPE  153 

mind;  and  his  song,  and  his  philosophy,  his  good 
sense,  his  happy  easy  turns  and  melody,  his  loves 
and  his  Epicureanism  bear  a  great  resemblance  to 
that  most  delightful  and  accomplished  master.  In 
5  reading  his  works  one  is  struck  with  their  modern 
air,  as  well  as  by  their  happy  similarity  to  the  songs 
of  the  charming  owner  of  the  Sabine  farm.  In  his 
verses  addressed  to  Halifax,  he  says,  writing  of  that 
endless  theme  to  poets,  the  vanity  of  human 
lo  wishes — 

1  "  So  whilst  in  fevered  dreams  we   sink, 

And  waking,   taste   what  we   desire. 
The  real  draught  but  feeds  the  fire, 
The  dream  is  better  than  the  drink. 

'5  Our  hopes  like  towering  falcons  aim 

At  objects  in  an  airy  height: 
To  stand  aloof  and  vierw  the  flight, 
Is  all  the  pleasure  of  the  game." 

Would  you  not  fancy  that  a  poet  of  our  own 
2o  days  *  was  singing?    and  in  the  verses  of  Chloe 
weeping  and  reproaching  him  for  his  inconstancy, 
where  he  says — 

"  The  God  of  us  versemen,  you  know,  child,  the  Sun, 
How,  after  his  journeys,  he  sets  up  his  rest. 
25  If  at  morning  o'er  earth  'tis  his  fancy  to  run. 

At  night  he  declines  on  his  Thetis's  breast. 


30 


'  A  different  cause,'  says  Parson  Sly, 
'  The  same  effect  may  give; 
Poor  Lubin  fears  that  he  shall  die, 
His  wife  that  he  may  live.'  " 

*  [Thackeray,  however,  has  ingeniously  transposed  the  order  of 
these  verses,  which,  in  the  original,  are  not  in  the  metre  made 
familiar  by  a  poet  of  our  own  days.] 


154  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

So,  when  I  am  wearied  with  wandering  all  day. 
To  thee,  my  delight,  in  the  evening  I  come: 

No  matter  what  beauties  I  saw  in  my  way, 
They  were  but  my  visits,  but  thou  art  my  home  ! 

Then  finish,  dear  Chloe,  this  pastoral  war,  5 

And  let  us  like  Horace  and  Lydia  agree: 

For  thou  art  a  girl  as  much  brighter  than  her, 
As  he  was  a  poet  sublimer  than  me."' 

If  Prior  read  Horace,  did  not  Thomas   Moore 
study  Prior?    Love  and  pleasure  find  singers  in  alho 
days.     Roses  are  always  blowing  and  fading — to- 
day as  in  that  pretty  time  when  Prior  sang  of  them, 
and  of  Chloe  lamenting  their  decav — 


'  She  sighed,  she  smiled,  and  to  the  flowers 

Pointing,  the  lovely  moralist  said:  ,e 

See,  friend,  in  some  few  fleeting  hours, 
See  yonder  what  a  change  is  made  ! 

Ah  me!    the  blooming  pride  of  ]\Iay 

And  that  of  Beauty  are  but  one: 
At  morn  both  flourish,  bright  and  gay,  20 

Both  fade  at   evening,  pale  and  gone. 

At  dawn  poor  Stella  danced  and  sung. 
The  amorous  youth  around  her  bowed: 

At  night  her  fatal  knell  was  rung; 

I  saw,  and  kissed  her  in  her  shroud.  -,- 

Such  as  she  is  who  died  to-day, 

Such  I,  alas,  may  be  to-morrow: 
Go,  Damon,  bid  thy  Muse  display 

The  justice  of  thy  Chloe's  sorrow." 


Damon's  knell  was  rung  in  1721.     May  his  turf  30 
lie    lightly    on    him!      "  Deus    sit    propitius    huic 


PRIOR,  GAY,  AND    POPE  I  55 

potatori,"  as  Walter  de  Mapes  sang.*  Perhaps 
Samuel  Johnson,  who  spoke  slightingly  of  Prior's 
verses,  enjoyed  them  more  than  he  was  willing  to 

*  Prior  to  Sir  Thomas  Hamncr. 

5  "  Aug.  4,  1709. 

"  Dear  Sir, — Friendship  may  live,  I  grant  you,  without  being  fed 

and   cherished   by  correspondence;     but  with   that   additional   benefit 

I  am  of  opinion  it  will  look  more  cheerful  and  thrive  better:    for  in 

this  case,   as   in   love,   though   a   man   is   sure  of  his  own   constancy, 

10  yet  his  happiness  depends  a  good  deal  upon  the  sentiments  of 
another,  and  while  yovi  and  Chloe  are  alive,  'tis  not  enough  that  I 
love  you  both,  except  I  am  sure  you  both  love  me  again;  and  as 
one  of  her  scrawls  fortifies  my  mind  more  against  affliction  than 
all  Epictet'us,  with   Simplicius's  comments  into  the  bargain,  so  your 

^5  single  letter  gave  me  more  real  pleasure  than  all  the  .works  of 
Plato.  ...  I  must  return  my  answer  to  your  very  kind  question 
concerning  my  health.  The  Bath  waters  have  done  a  good  deal 
towards  the  recovery  of  it,  and  the  great  specific.  Cape  caballiim, 
will,  I  think,  confirm  it.  Upon  this  head  I  must  tell  you  that  my 
mare  Betty  grows  blind,  and  may  one  day,  by  breaking  my  neck, 
perfect  my  cure:  if  at  Rixham  fair  any  pretty  nagg  that  is  between 
thirteen  and  fourteen  hands  presented  himself,  and  you  would  be 
pleased  to  purchase  him  for  me,  one  of  yotir  servants  might  ride 
him   to   Euston,   and    I    might   receive   him   there.     This,   sir,   is  just 

-5  as  such  a  thing  happens.  If  you  hear,  too,  of  a  Welch  widow,  with 
a  good  jointure,  that  has  her  goings  and  is  not  very  skittish,  pray 
be  pleased  to  cast  your  eye  on  her  for  me  too.  You  see,  sir,  the 
great  trust  I  repose  in  your  skill  and  honour,  when  I  dare  put 
two    such    commissions    in    your    hand.  .  .  ." — The    Hanmer    Corre- 

30  spondence,  p.   120. 

Front  Mr.  Prior. 

"  Paris:    jsf-i2th  May,  1714. 
"  My    dear    Lord    and    Friend, — Matthew    never    had    so    great 
occasion  to  write  a  word   to   Henry  as  now:     it  is  noised  here  that 

35  I  am  soon  to  return.  The  question  that  I  wish  I  could  answer  to 
the  many  that  ask,  and  to  our  friend  Colbert  de  Torcy  (to  whom  I 
made  your  compliments  in  the  manner  you  commanded)  is,  what 
is  done  for  me;  and  to  what  I  am  recalled  ?  It  may  look  like  a 
bagatelle,   what   is   to   become   of  a   philosopher   like   me  ?     but   it    is 

40  not  such:  what  is  to  become  of  a  person  who  had  thehonour  to  be 
chosen,  and  sent  hither  as  intrusted,  in  the  midst  of  a  war,  with 
what  the  Queen  designed  should  make  the  peace;  returning  with 
the  Lord  Bolingbroke,  one  of  the  greatest  men  in  England,  and  one 
of   the    finest    heads    in    Europe    (as    they    say    here,    if   true    or    not, 

45  n'importe)  ;  having  been  left  by  him  in  the  greatest  character  (that 
of  her  Majesty's  Plenipotentiary),   exercising  that  power  conjointly 


156 


ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 


own.  The  old  moralist  had  studied  them  as  well 
as  Mr.  Thomas  Moore,  and  defended  them  and 
showed  that  he  remembered  them  very  well  too, 

with  the  Duke  of  Shrewsbury,  and  solely  after  his  departure; 
having  here  received  more  distinguished  honour  than  any  Minister,  5 
except  an.  Ambassador,  ever  did,  and  some  which  were  never  given 
to  any  but  who  had  that  character;  having  had  all  the  success  that 
could  be  expected;  having  (God  be  thanked  !)  spared  no  pains, 
at  a  time  when  at  home  the  peace  is  voted  safe  and  honourable — 
at  a  time  when  the  Earl  of  Oxford  is  Lord  Treasurer  and  Lord  lO 
Bolingbroke  First  Secretary  of  State  ?  This  unfortunate  person, 
I  say,  neglected,  forgot,  unnamed  to  anything  that  may  speak  the 
Queen  satisfied  with  his  services,  or  his  friends  concerned  as  to  his 
fortune. 

"Mr.   de  Torcy   put   me   quite  out   of  countenance,   the  other  day,  15 
by  a  pity  that  wounded  me  deeper  than  ever  did  the  cruelty  of  the 
late  Lord  Godolphin.     He  said  he  would  write  to   Robin  and   Harry 
about  me.     God  forbid,  my  Lord,  that  I  should  need  any  foreign  in- 
tercession,  or   owe   the   least   to   any    Frenchman   living,   besides   the 
decency  of  behaviour  and  the  returns  of  common  civility:    some  say 20 
I   am   to   go  to   Baden,   others   that    I    am   to   be   added   to   the   Com- 
missioners for  settling  the  commerce.     In  all  cases  I  am  ready,  but 
in  the  meantime,   die  alxquid  de  trihiis  capcUis.     Neither  of  these  two 
are,    I    presume,    honours   or   rewards,    neither   of   them    (let    me    say 
to  my  dear   Lord   Bolingbroke,   and  let   him   not  be  angry  with   me)  25 
are   what    Drift   may   aspire   to,   and   what    Mr.    Whitworth,   who   was 
his    fellow-clerk,    has    or    may    possess.      I    am    far   from    desiring    to 
lessen    the    great    merit    of    the    gentleman    I    named,    for    I    heartily 
esteem  and  love  him;    but  in  this  trade  of  ours,  my  Lord,  in  which 
you   are   the   general,   as   in    that   of   the   soldiery,   there   is   a   certain 30 
right   acquired   by   time   and   long   service.     You   would   do   anything 
for    your     Queen's    service,    but    you    would    not    be    contented    to 
descend,    and    be    degraded    to    a    charge,    no    way    proportioned    to 
that    of    Secretary    of    State,    any    more    than    Mr.    Ross,    though    he 
would   charge   a   party   with    a   halbard   in    his   hand,    would    be   con- 35 
tent    all    his    life    after    to   be    Serjeant.      Was    my    Lord    Dartmouth, 
from    Secretary,    returned    again    to    be    Commissioner    of    Trade,    or 
from    Secretary   of    War,    would    Frank    Gwyn    think    himself   kindly 
used    to    be    returned    again    to    be    Commissioner  ?      In    short,    my 
Lord,    you    have    put    me    above    myself,    and    if    I    am    to    return    1040 
myself,    I    shall   return   to   something   very   discontented   and   uneasy. 
I   am   sure,   my   Lord,   you   will   make   the   best  use   you   can   of  this 
hint  for  my  good.     If  I  am  to  have  anything,  it  will  certainly  be  for 
her  Majesty's  service,  and  the  credit  of  my  friends  in  the   Ministry, 
that  it  be  done  before  I  am  recalled  from  home,  lest  the  world  may 45 
think    either   that    I   have   merited   to   be   disgraced,   or   that   ye   dare 
not   stand   by   me.     If  nothing   is   to   be   done,   fiat  voluntas   Dei.    I 
have    writ    to    Lord    Treasurer    upon    this    subject,    and    having    im- 


PRIOR,  GAY,  AND    ROPE  157 

on  an  occasion  when  their  morality  was  called  in 
question  by  that  noted  puritan,  James  Boswell,  Es- 
quire, of  Auchinleck.* 

In  the  great  society  of  the  wits,  John  Gay  de- 
5  served  to  be  a  favourite,  and  to  have  a  good  place.f 

plored  your  kind  intercession,  I  promise  you  it  is  the  last  remon- 
strance of  this  kind  that  I  will  ever  make.  Adieu,  my  Lord,  all 
honour,  health,  and  pleasure  to  you. 

"  Yours    ever,   Matt. 

lO  "  P.^.— Lady  Jersey  is  just  gone  from  me.  We  drank  your  healths 
together  in  usquebaugh  after  our  tea:  we  are  the  greatest  friends 
alive.  Once  more  adieu.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  the  '  Book  of 
Travels'  you  mentioned;  if  there  be,  let  friend  Tilson  send  us 
more   particular   account   of   them,   for   neither   I   nor   Jacob   Tonson 

15  can  find  them.  Pray  send  Barton  back  to  me,  I  hope  with  some 
comfortable  tidings." — BoHiigbroke's  Letters. 

*"I  asked  whether  Prior's  poems  were  to  be  printed  entire; 
Johnson  said  they  were.  I  mentioned  Lord  Hales's  censure  of 
Prior    in    his    preface    to    a    collection    of    sacred    poems,    by    various 

20  hands,  published  by  him  at  Edinburgh  a  great  many  years  ago, 
where  he  mentions  '  these  impure  tales,  which  will  be  the  eternal 
opprobrium  of  their  ingenious  author.'  Johnson:  'Sir,  Lord  Hales 
has  forgot.  There  is  nothing  in  Prior  that  will  excite  to  lewdness. 
If   Lord   Hales   thinks   there   is,   he   must  be   more   combustible  than 

25  other  people.'  I  instanced  the  tale  of  '  Paulo  Purganti  and  his  wife.' 
Johnson:  'Sir,  there  is  nothing  there  but  that  his  wife  wanted  to 
be  kissed,  when  poor  Paulo  was  out  of  pocket.  No,  sir,  Prior  is  a 
lady's  book.  No  lady  is  ashamed  to  have  it  standing  in  her  library." 
— Boswell's  Life  of  Johnson. 

.30  •)•  Gay  was  of  an  old  Devonshire  family,  but  his  pecuniary  prospects 
not  being  great,  was  placed  in  his  youth  in  the  house  of  a  silk- 
mercer  in  London.  He  was  born  in  1688 — Pope's  year  [It  has  been 
lately  shown  that  Gay  was  born  in  1685],  and  in  1712  the  Duchess 
of  Alonmouth  made  him  her  secretary.     Next  year  he  published  his 

35  Rural  S(>orts,  which  he  dedicated  to  Pope,  and  so  made  an  acquain- 
tance which  became  a  memorable  friendship. 

"  Gay,"  says  Pope,  "  was  quite  a  natural  man, — wholly  without  art 
or  design,  and  spoke  just  what  he  thought  and  as  he  thought  it. 
He  dangled  for  twenty  years  about  a  Court,  and  at  last  was  offered 

40  to  be  made  usher  to  the  young  princesses.  Secretary  Craggs  made 
Gay  a  present  of  stock  in  the  South  Sea  year;  and  he  was  once 
worth  £20,000,  but  lost  it  all  again.  He  got  about  £400  by  the  first 
'  Beggar's  Opera,'  and  £1100  or  £1200  by  the  second.  He  was 
negligent   and  a  bad   manager.     Latterly,   the   Duke   of   Queensberry 

45  took  his  money  into  his  keeping,  and  let  him  only  have  what  was 


158  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

In  his  set  all  were  fond  of  him.  His  success  of- 
fended nobody.  He  missed  a.  fortune  once  or  twice. 
He  was  talked  of  for  Court  favour,  and  hoped  to 
win  it;  but  the  Court  favour  jilted  him.  Craggs 
gave  him  some  South  Sea  stock;  and  at  one  time  5 
Gay^  had  very  nearly  made  his  fortune.  But  For- 
tune shook  her  swift  wings  and  jilted  him  too:  and 
so  his  friends,  instead  of  being  angry  with  him,  and 
jealous  of  him,  were  kind  and  fond  of  honest  Gay. 
In  the  portraits  of  the  literary  worthies  of  the  early  10 
part  of  the  last  century,  Gay's  face  is  the  pleasantest 
perhaps  of  all.  It  appears  adorned  with  neither 
periwig  nor  nightcap  (the  full  dress  and  ncgUgc  of 
learning,  without  which  the  painters  of  those  days 
scarcely  ever  portrayed  wits),  and  he  laughs  at  you  15 
over  his  shoulder  with  an  honest  boyish  glee — an 
artless  sweet  humour.  He  was  so  kind,  so  gentle, 
so  jocular,  so  delightfully  brisk  at  times,  so  dismally 
woebegone  at  others,  such  a  natural  good  creature, 
that  the  Giants  loved  him.  The  great  Swift  was  20 
gentle  and  sportive  with  him,*  as  the  enormous 
Brobdingnag  maids  of  honour  were  with  little  Gul- 
liver. He  could  frisk  and  fondle  round  Pope,t  and 
sport,  and  bark,  and  caper,  without  ofifending  the 

necessary  out  of  it,   and,   as  he  lived  with   them,   he  could  not   have  25 
occasion    for    mvich.       lie    died    worth     upwards    of    £3000." — Pope. 
Spence's  Anecdotes. 

*  "  Mr.    Gay   is,    in    all    regards,    as    honest   and    sincere   a    man    as 
ever  I  knew." — Swift,  To  Lady  Betty  Gcrmainc,  Jan.  1733. 

t  "  Of  manners  gentle,   of  affections  mild;  3^ 

In  wit  a  man;    simplicity,  a  child; 
With  native  humour  temp'ring  virtuous  rage, 
Form'd  to  delight  at  once  and  lash  the  age; 
Above  temptation  in  a  low  estate, 
And  uncorrupted  e'en  among  the  great:  35 


Prior,  gay,  and  pope  i59 

most  thin-skinned  of  poets  and  men:  and  when  he 
was  jiUed  in  that  httle  Court  affair  of  which  we 
have  spoken,  his  warm-hearted  patrons  the  Duke 
and  Duchess  of  Oueensberry  *  (the  "  Kitty,  beau- 

B  A  safe  companion,  and  an  easy  friend, 

Unblamed  through  life,  lamented  in  thy  end. 
These  are  thy  honours;    not  that  here  thy  bust 
Is  mixed  with  heroes,  or  with  kings  thy  dust; 
But  that  the  worthy  and  the  good  shall  say, 
lO  Striking  their  pensive  bosoms,  '  Here  lies  Gay.'  " 

— Pope's  Epitaph  on  Gay. 

"  A  hare  who  in  a  civil  way, 
Complied  with  everything,  like  Gay." 

— Fables,  "  The  Hare  and  many  Friends." 
15      *  "  I  can  give  you  no  account  of  Gay,"  says  Pope  curiously,  "  sirrce 
he  was  raffled  for,  and  won  back  by  his  Duchess." — Works,  Roscoe's 
ed.,  vol.  i.x.  p.  392. 

Here   is   the   letter   Pope  wrote   to   him   when   the   death   of   Queen 
Anne    brought   back    Lord    Clarendon    from    Hanover,    and    lost    him 
20  the    Secretaryship    of    that    nobleman,    of    which    he    had    had    but    a 
short  tenure. 

Gay's    Court    prospects    were    never    happy    from    this    time. — His 
dedication    of   the    Shepherd's    Week    to    Bolingbroke,    Swift    used    to 
call    the    "  original    sin  "    which    had    hurt    him    with    the    house    of 
25  Hanover: — ■ 

"  Sept.  23,  1714. 

"  Dear  Mr.  Gay, — Welcome  to  your  native  soil  !    welcome  to  your 

friends  !     thrice   welcome   to   me  !     whether   returned   in   glory,   blest 

with  Court  interest,  the  love  and  familiarity  of  the  great,  and  filled 

.■^Owith  agreeable  hopes;  or  melancholy  with  dejection,  contemplative  of 

the  changes  of  fortune,  and  doubtful  for  the  future;  whether  returned 

a  triumphant  Whig,  or  a  desponding  Tory,  equally  all  hail  !    equally 

beloved   and   welcome   to   me  !     If  happy,   I   am   to   partake   in   your 

elevation;     if   unhappy,   you   have   still   a   warm   corner   in   my   heart, 

35  and  a  retreat  at   Binfield  in  the  worst  of  times  at  your  service.     If 

you  are  a  Tory,  or  thought  so  by  any  man,  I  know  it  can  proceed 

from  nothing  but  your   gratitude  to  a  few   people  who  endeavoured 

to  serve  you,  and  whose  politics  were  never  your  concern.     If  you 

are  a  Whig,   as   I   rather  hope,   and   as   I   think   your  principles  and 

40  mine  (as  brother  poets)  had  ever  a  bias  to  the  side  of  liberty,  I  know 

you  will  be  an  honest  man  and  an  inolTensive  one.     Upon  the  whole, 

I  know  you  are  incapable  of  being  so  much  of  either  party  as  to  be 

good   for   nothing.     Therefore,    once   more,    whatever   you    are   or   in 

whatever  state  you  are,  all  hail  ! 

45      "  One    or    two    of   your    own    friends    complained    they    had    heard 

nothing  from  you  since  the   Queen's  death;    I  told  them  no  man 


l6o  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

tiful  and  young,"  of  Prior)  pleaded  his  cause  with 
indignation,  and  quitted  the  Court  in  a  huff,  carry- 
ing off  with  them  into  their  retirement  their  kind 
gentle  protege.  With  these  kind  lordly  folks,  a  real 
Duke  and  Duchess,  as  delightful  as  those  who  liar-   5 

living  loved  Mr.  Gay  better  than  I,  yet  1  had  not  once  written  to 
him  in  all  his  voyage.  This  I  thought  a  convincing  proof  how 
truly  one  may  be  a  friend  to  another  without  telling  hiin  so  every 
month.  But  they  had  reasons,  too,  themselves  to  allege  in  your 
excuse,  as  men  who  really  value  one  another  will  never  want  such  lO 
as  make  their  friends  and  themselves  easy.  The  late  universal  con- 
cern in  public  affairs  threw  us  all  into  a  hurry  of  spirits:  even  I, 
who  am  more  a  philosopher  than  to  expect  anything  from  any  reign, 
was  borne  away  with  the  current,  and  full  of  the  expectation  of  the 
successor.  During  your  journeys,  I  knev/  not  whither  to  aim  a  15 
letttr  after  you;  that  was  a  sort  of  shooting  flying:  add  to  this  the 
demand  Homer  had  upon  me,  to  write  fifty  verses  a  day,  besides 
learned  notes,  all  which  are  at  a  conclusion  for  this  year.  Rejoice 
with  me,  O  my  friend  !  that  my  labour  is  over;  come  and  make 
merry  with  me  in  much  feasting.  We  will  feed  among  the  lilies  (by  20 
the  lilies  I  mean  the  ladies).  Are  not  the  Rosalindas  of  Britain  as 
charming  as  the  Blousalindas  of  the  Hague  ?  or  have  the  two  great 
Pastoral  poets  of  our  nation  renounced  love  at  the  same  time  ?  for 
Philips,  immortal  Philips,  hath  deserted,  yea,  and  in  a  rustic  manner 
kicked  his  Rosalind.  Dr.  Parnell  and  I  have  been  inseparable  ever  ^5 
since  you  went.  We  are  now  at  the  Bath,  where  (if  you  are  not,  as 
I  heartily  hope,  better  engaged)  your  coming  would  be  the  greatest 
pleasure  to  us  in  the  world.  Talk  not  of  expenses:  Homer  shall 
support  his  children.  I  beg  a  line  from  you,  directed  to  the  Post- 
house  in  Bath.     Poor  Parnell  is  in  an  ill  state  of  health.  3^ 

"  Pardon  me  if  I  add  a  word  of  advice  in  the  poetical  way.  W'rite 
something  on  the  King,  or  Prince,  or  Princess.  On  whatsoever  foot 
you  may  be  with  the  Court,  this  can  do  no  harm.  I  shall  never  know 
where  to  end,  and  am  confounded  in  the  many  things  I  have  to  say 
to  you,  though  they  all  amount  but  to  this,  that  I  am,  entirely,  35 
as  ever, 

"  Your,"  &c. 

Gay  took  the  advice  "  in  the  poetical  way,"  and  published  "  An 
Epistle  to  a  Lady,  occasioned  by  the  arrival  of  her  Royal  Highness 
the  Princess  of  Wales."  But  though  this  brought  him  access  to  40 
Court,  and  the  attendance  of  the  Prince  and  Princess  at  his  farce 
of  the  "  What  d'ye  call  it  ?  "  it  did  not  bring  him  a  place.  On  the 
accession  of  George  II.,  he  was  oflfered  the  situation  of  Gentleman 
Usher  to  the  Princess  Louisa  (her  Highness  being  then  two  years 
old);  but  "by  this  offer,"  says  Johnson,  "he  thought  himself  45 
insulted." 


PRIOR,   GA  V,  AND    POPE  l6l 

bonred  Don  Quixote,  and  loved  that  dear  old 
Sancho,  Gay  lived,  and  was  lapped  in  cotton,  and 
had  his  plate  of  chicken,  and  his  saucer  of  cream, 
and  frisked,  and  barked,  and  wheezed,  and  grew  fat, 
5  and  so  ended.*  He  became  very  melancholy  and 
lazy,  sadly  plethoric,  and  only  occasionally  divert- 
ing in  his  latter  days.  But  everybody  loved  him, 
and  the  remembrance  of  his  pretty  little  tricks ;  and 
the  raging  old  Dean  of  Saint  Patrick's,  chafing  in 

lohis  banishment,  was  afraid  to  open  the  letter  which 
Pope  wrote  him  announcing  the  sad  news  of  the 
death  of  Gay.f 

Swift's  letters  to  him  are  beautiful;    and  having 
no  purpose  but  kindness  in  writing  to  him,  no  party 

15  aim  to  advocate,  or  slight  or  anger  to  wTcak,  every 
word  the  Dean  says  to  his  favourite  is  natural, 
trustworthy,  and  kindly.    His  admiration  for  Gay's 

*  "  Gay    was    a    great    eater. — As    the    French    philosopher    used    to 
prove  his  existence  by  Cogito,  ergo  sum,  the  greatest  proof  of  Gay's 
20  existence  is,  Edit,  ergo  est." — Congreve,  m  a  letter  to  Pope.     Spence's 
Anecdotes. 

t  Swift  endorsed  the  letter — "  On  my  dear  friend  Mr.  Gay's  death; 
received  Dec.  15,  but  not  read  till  the  20th,  by  an  impulse  fore- 
boding some  misforttme." 
25  "  It  was  by  Swift's  interest  that  Gay  was  made  known  to  Lord 
Colingbroke,  and  obtained  his  patronage." — Scott's  Sztiift,  vol.  i. 
p.  156. 

Pope  wrote  on  the  occasion  of  Gay's  death,  to  Swift,  thus: — 

"  Wee.  5,  1732.] 
30  "...  One  of  the  nearest  and  longest  ties  I  have  ever  had  is 
broken  all  on  a  sudden  by  the  unexpected  death  of  poor  Mr.  Gay. 
An  inflammatory  fever  hurried  him  out  of  this  life  in  three  days.  .  .  . 
He  asked  of  you  a  few  hours  before  when  in  acute  torment  by  the 
inflammation  in  his  bowels  and  breast.  .  .  .  His  sisters,  we  suppose, 
35  will  be  his  heirs,  who  are  two  widows.  .  .  .  Good  God  !  how  often 
are  we  to  die  before  we  go  quite  off  this  stage  ?  In  every  friend  we 
lose  a  part  of  ourselves,  and  the  best  part.  God  keep  those  we 
have  left  !  few  are  worth  praying  for,  and  one's  self  the  least  of 
all." 


l62  ENGLISH  nUMOURISl^S 

parts  and  honesty,  and  his  laughter  at  his  weak- 
nesses, were  ahke  just  and  genuine.  He  paints  his 
character' in  wonderful  pleasant  traits  of  jocular 
satire.  "  I  writ  lately  to  Mr.  Pope,"  Swift  says, 
writing  to  Gay:  "  I  wish  you  had  a  little  villakin  5 
in  his  neighbourhood;  but  you  are  yet  too  volatile, 
and  any  lady  with  a  coach  and  six  horses  would 
carry  you  to  Japan."  "  If  your  ramble,"  says  Swift, 
in  another  letter,  "  was  on  horseback,  I  am  glad  of 
it,  on  account  of  your  health ;  but  I  know  your  arts  10 
of  patching  up  a  journey  between  stage-coaches 
and  friends'  coaches — for  you  are  as  arrant  a 
cockney  as  any  hosier  in  Cheapside.  I  have  often 
had  it  in  my  head  to  put  it  into  yours,  that  you 
ought  to  have  some  great  work  in  scheme,  which  15 
may  take  up  seven  years  to  finish,  besides  two  or 
three  under-ones  that  may  add  another  thousand 
pounds  to  your  stock.  And  then  I  shall  be  in  less 
pain  about  you.  I  know  you  can  find  dinners,  but 
you  love  twelvepenny  coaches  too  well,  without 20 
considering  that  the  interest  of  a  whole  thousand 
pounds  brings  you  but  half-a-crown  a  day."  And 
then  Swift  goes  ofT  from  Gay  to  pay  some  grand 
compliments  to  her  Grace  the  Duchess  of  Queens- 
berry,  in  whose  sunshine  Mr.  Gay  was  basking,  and  25 
in  whose  radiance  the  Dean  would  have  liked  to 
warm  himself  too. 

But  we  have  Gay  here  before  us,  in  these  letters 
- — lazy,  kindly,  unconunonly  idle;    rather  slovenly, 
I'm  afraid;   for  ever  eating  and  saying  good  things;  30 
a  little  round  French  abbe  of  a  man,  sleek,  soft- 
haniled,  and  soft-hearted. 


PRIOR,  GA  V,  AND    POPE  1 63 

Our  object  in  these  lectures  is  rather  to  describe 
the  men  than  their  works ;  or  to  deal  with  the  latter 
only  in  as  far  as  they  seem  to  illustrate  the  charac- 
ter of  their  writers.  Mr.  Gay's  "  Fables  "  which 
5  were  written  to  benefit  that  amiable  Prince  the 
Duke  of  Cumberland,  the  warrior  of  Dettingen  and 
CuUoden,  I  have  not,  I  own,  been  able  to  peruse 
since  a  period  of  very  early  youth;  and  it  must  be 
confessed   that   they   did   not   effect   much   benefit 

10  upon  the  illustrious  young  Prince,  whose  manners 
fhey  were  intended  to  mollify,  and  whose  natural 
ferocity  our  gentle-hearted  Satirist  perhaps  pro- 
posed to  restrain.    But  the  six  pastorals  called  the 

-    "  Shepherd's  Week,"  and  the  burlesque  poem  of 

I J  "Trivia,"  any  man  fond  of  lazy  literature  will  find 
delightful  at  the  present  day,  and  must  read  from 
beginning  to  end  with  pleasure.  They  are  to  poetry 
what  charming  little  Dresden  china  figures  are  to 
sculpture:   graceful,  minikin,  fantastic;   with  a  cer- 

20  tain  beauty  always  accompanying  them.  The 
pretty  little  personages  of  the  pastoral,  with  gold 
clocks  to  their  stockings,  and  fresh  satin  ribands 
to  their  crooks  and  waistcoats  and  bodices,  danced 
their  loves  to  a  minuet-tune  played  on  a  bird-organ, 

25  approach  the  charmer,  or  rush  from  the  false  one 
daintily  on  their  red-heeled  tiptoes,  and  die  of 
despair  or  rapture,  with  the  most  pathetic  little 
grins  and  ogles;  or  repose,  simpering  at  each 
other,  under  an  arbour  of  pea-green  crockery;    or 

30  piping  to  pretty  flocks  that  have  just  been  washed 
with  the  best  Naples  in  a  stream  of  bergamot. 
Gay's  gay  plan  seems  to  me  far  pleasanter  than  that 


104  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

of  Philips — his  rival  and  Pope's — a  serious  and 
dreary  idyllic  cockney;  not  that  Gay's  "  Bum- 
kinets  "  and  "  Hobnelias  "  are  a  whit  more  natural 
than  the  would-be  serious  characters  of  the  other 
posture-master;  but  the  quality  of  this  true  hu-  5 
mourist  was  to  laugh  and  make  laugh,  though  al- 
ways with  a  secret  kindness  and  tenderness,  to 
perform  the  drollest  little  antics  and  capers,  but 
always  with  a  certain  grace,  and  to  sweet  music — 
as  you  may  have  seen  a  Savoyard  boy  abroad,  with  10 
a  hurdy-gurdy  and  a  monkey,  turning  over  head 
and  heels,  or  clattering  and  pirouetting  in  a  pair  of 
wooden  shoes,  yet  always  with  a  look  of  love  and 
appeal  in  his  bright  eyes,  and  a  smile  that  asks  and 
vvins  afifection  and  protection.  Happy  they  who  15 
have  that  sweet  gift  of  nature!  It  was  this  which 
made  the  great  folk  and  Court  ladies  free  and 
friendly  with  John  Gay — which  made  Pope  and 
Arbuthnot  love  him — which  melted  the  savage 
heart  of  Swift  when  he  thought  of  him — and  drove  20 
away,  for  a  moment  or  two,  the  dark  frenzies  which 
obscured  tlie  lonely  tyrant's  brain,  as  he  heard 
Gay's  voice  with  its  simple  melody  and  artless  ring- 
ing laughter. 

What  used  to  l)o  said  about  Rubini,*  qxCll  ava'ii  25 
dcs  I  amies  dans  la  I'oix,  may  be  said  of  Gay,t  and  of 
one  other  humourist  of  whom  we   shall  have  to 


*  [This    was    sp.id    earlier    of    !Mdlle.    Duchesnois    of    the    Theatre 
Frangais,   who  was  not  beautiful,   but  had  a  most  beautiful   voice.] 

t  "  Gay,    like    Goldsmith,    had    a    musical    talent.      '  He    could    plaj'  30 
on   the   flute,'   says   Malone,   '  and   was,   therefore,   enabled   to   adapt 
so    happily    some    of    the    airs    in    the    Beggar's    Opera.'  "—Notes    to 
Spence, 


PRIOR,  GA  V,  AND    POPE  1 65 

Speak.      In    almost    every  ballad    of    his,    however 
slight,*  in  the  *'  Beggar's  Opera  "  f  and  in  its  weari- 

*  "  'Twas  when  the  seas  were  roaring 
With  hollow  blasts  of  wind, 
5  A  damsel  lay  deploring 

All  on  a  rock  reclined. 
Wide  o'er  the  foaming  billows 

She  cast  a  wistful  look; 
Her  head  was  crown'd  with  willows 
10  That  trembled  o'er  the  brook. 

*  Twelve  months  are  gone  and  over, 

And  nine  long  tedious  days; 
Why  didst  thou,  venturous  lover — 

Why  didst  thou  trust  the  seas  ? 
15  Cease,  cease,  thou  cruel  Ocean, 

And  let  my  lover  rest; 
Ah  !    what's  thy  troubled  motion 

To  that  within  my  breast  ? 

'  The  merchant,  robb'd  of  pleasure, 
20  Sees  tempests  in  despair; 

But  what's  the  loss  of  treasure 

To  losing  of  my  dear  ? 
Should  you  some  coast  be  laid  on, 
Where  gold  and  diamonds  grow, 
25  You'd  find  a  richer  maiden. 

But  none  that  loves  you  so. 

'  How  can  they  say  that  Nature 

Has  nothing  made  in  vain; 
Why,  then,  beneath  the  water 
00  Should   hideous   rocks  remain  ? 

No  eyes  the  rocks  discover 

That  lurk  beneath  the  deep,  ' 

To  wreck  the  wandering  lover. 

And  leave  the  maid  to  weep  ?  ' 

35  All  melancholy  lying. 

Thus  wailed  she  for  her  dear; 
Repay'd  each  blast  with  sighing, 

Each  billow  with  a  tear; 
WHien  o'er  the  white  wave  stooping, 
40  His  floating  corpse  she  spy'd; 

Then  like  a  lily  drooping. 
She  bow'd  her  head,  and  died." 

— A  Ballad  from  the  "  What  d'ye  call  it  ?  " 

"  What    can    be    prettier    than    Gay's    ballad,    or,    rather,    Swift's, 
45  t  Sec  foot-note  on  page  166. 


l66  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

some  continuation  (where  the  verses  are  to  the  full 
as  pretty  as  in  the  first  piece,  however),  there  is  a 
pecuHar,  hinted,  pathetic  sweetness  and  melody.  It 
charms  and  melts  you.  It's  indefinable,  but  it 
exists;  and  is  the  property  of  John  Gay's  and  Oli-  5 
ver  Goldsmith's  best  verse  as  fragrance  is  of  a  vio- 
let, or  freshness  of  a  rose. 

Let  me  read  a  piece  from  one  of  his  letters,  which 
is  so  famous  that  most  people  here  are  no  doubt 
familiar  with  it,  but  so  delightful  that  it  is  always  10 
pleasant  to  hear: — 

"  I  have  just  passed  part  of  this  summer  at  aa 
old  romantic  seat  of  my  Lord  Harcourt's  which  he 
lent  me.  It  overlooks  a  common  field,  where,  un- 
der the  shade  of  a  haycock,  sat  two  lovers  as  con-  15 

Arbuthnot's,  Pope's,  and  Gay's,  in  the  '  What  d'ye  call  it  ?  '  '  'Twas 
when  the  seas  were  roaring  '  ?  I  have  been  well  informed  that  they 
all   contributed." — Coivficr  to   Unwin,   1783. 

t  "  Dr.  Swift  had  been  observing  once  to  Mr.  Gay,  what  an  odd 
pretty  sort  of  thing  a  Newgate  Pastoral  might  make.  Gay  was  in-  20 
clined  to  try  at  such  a  thing  for  some  time,  but  afterwards  thoug'ht 
it  would  be  better  to  write  a  comedy  on  the  same  plan.  This  was 
what  gave  rise  to  the  Beggar's  Opera.  He  began  on  it,  and  when 
he  first  mentioned  it  to  Swift,  the  Doctor  did  not  much  like  the 
project.  As  he  carried  it  on,  he  showed  what  he  wrote  to  both  of  25 
us;  and  we  now  and  then  gave  a  correction,  or  a  word  or  two  of 
advice;  but  it  was  wholly  of  his  own  writing.  When,  it  was  done, 
neither  of  us  thought  it  would  succeed.  We  showed  it  to  Congreve, 
who,  after  reading  it  over,  said,  '  It  would  either  take  greatly,  or  be 
damned  confoundedly.'  We  were  all  at  the  first  night  of  it,  in  great  30 
uncertainty  of  the  event,  till  we  were  very  much  encouraged  by  over- 
hearing the  Duke  of  Argyle,  who  sat  in  the  next  bo.x  to  us,  say, 
'  It  will  do — it  must  do  ! — I  see  it  in  the  eyes  of  them  !  '  This  was 
a  good  while  before  the  first  act  was  over,  and  so  gave  us  ease  soon; 
for  the  Duke  [besides  his  own  good  taste]  has  a  more  particular  35 
knack  than  any  one  now  living  in  discovering  the  taste  of  the  public. 
He  was  quite  right  in  this  as  usual;  the  good-nature  of  the  audience 
appeared  stronger  and  stronger  every  act,  and  ended  in  a  clamour 
of  applause." — Pope.    Spciice's  Anecdotes. 


PRIOR,   GA  V,  AND    POPE  1 6/ 

stant  as  ever  were  found  in  romance — beneath  a 
spreading  beech.  The  name  of  the  one  (let  it  sound 
as  it  will)  was  John  Hewet;  of  the  other  Sarah 
Drew.  John  was  a  well-set  man,  about  five-and- 
5  twenty ;  Sarah  a  brown  woman  of  eighteen.  John 
had  for  several  months  borne  the  labour  of  the  day 
in  the  same  field  with  Sarah;  when  she  milked,  it 
was  his  morning  and  evening  charge  to  bring  the 
cows  to  her  pail.    Their  love  was  the  talk,  but  not 

lo  the  scandal,  of  the  whole  neighbourhood,  for  all 
they  aimed  at  was  the  blameless  possession  of  each 
other  in  marriage.  It  was  but  this  very  morning 
that  he  had  obtained  her  parents'  consent,  and  it 
was  but  till  the  next  week  that  they  were  to  wait 

15  to  be  happy.  Perhaps  this  very  day,  in  the  inter- 
vals of  their  work,  they  were  talking  of  their  wed- 
ding-clothes; and  John  was  now  matching  several 
kinds  of  poppies  and  field-Howers  to  her  complex- 
ion, to  make  her  a  present  of  knots  for  the  day. 

20  While  they  were  thus  employed  (it  was  on  the  last 
of  July)  a  terrible  storm  of  thunder  and  lightning 
arose,  that  drove  the  labourers  to  what  shelter  the 
trees  or  hedges  afforded.  Sarah,  frightened  and  out 
of  breath,  sunk  on  a  haycock;  and  John  (who  never 

25  separated  from  her),  sat  by  her  side,  having  raked 
two  or  three  heaps  together,  to  secure  her.  Im- 
mediately there  was  heard  so  loud  a  crack,  as  if 
heaven  had  burst  asunder.  The  labourers,  all  so- 
licitous   for    each    other's    safety,    called    to    one 

30  another:  those  that  were  nearest  our  lovers,  hear- 
ing no  answer,  stepped  to  the  place  where  they  lay: 
they  first  saw  a  little  smoke,  and  after,  this  faithful 


1 68  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

pair — John,  with  one  arm  about  his  Sarah's  neck, 
and  the  other  held  over  her  face,  as  if  to  screen  her 
from  the  Hghtning.  They  were  struck  dead,  and 
already  grown  stifif  and  cold  in  this  tender  posture. 
There  was  no  mark  or  discolouring  on  their  bodies  5 
— only  that  Sarah's  eyebrow  was  a  little  singed,  and 
a  small  spot  between  her  breasts.  They  were  buried 
the  next  day  in  one  grave." 

And  the  proof  that  this  description  is  delightful 
and  beautiful  is,  that  the  great  Mr.  Pope  admired  it  10 
so  much  that  he  thought  proper  to  steal  it  and  to 
send  it  off  to  a  certain  lady  and  wit,  with  whom  he 
pretended  to  be  in  love  in  those  days — my  Lord 
Duke  of  Kingston's  daughter,  and  married  to  Mr. 
Wortley  Montagu,  then  his  Majesty's  Ambassador  i5 
at  Constantinople.* 

We  are  now  come  to  the  greatest  name  on  our 
list — the  highest  among  the  poets,  the  highest 
among  the  English  wits  and  humourists  with  whom 
we  have  to  rank  him.  If  the  author  of  the  "  Dun-  20 
ciad  "  be  not  a  humourist,  if  the  poet  of  the  "  Rape 
of  the  Lock  "  be  not  a  wit.  who  deserves  to  be 
called  so?  Besides  that  brilliant  genius  and  im- 
mense fame,  for  both  of  which  we  should  respect 
him,  men  of  letters  should  admire  him  as  being  the  25 
greatest  literary  artist  that  England  has  seen.     He 

*  [This  was  a  natural  conjecture,  but  now  appears  to  be  erroneous. 
The  letter  seems  to  have  been  a  joint  composition  of  Gay  and  Pope, 
who  were  staying  together  at  Lord  Ilarcourt's  house.  Gay  wrote  to 
Fortescue,  while  Pope  sent  substantially  the  same  letter  to  ^Martha  3^ 
Blount,  Lord  P)athurst,  and  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu. — See  Mr. 
Courthope's  notes  in  Pope's  Works,  vol.  ix.,  284,  399.] 


PRIOR,   GAY,  AND    POPE  1 69 

polished,  he  refined,  he  thought;  he  took  thoughts 
from  other  works  to  adorn  and  complete  his  own; 
borrowing  an  idea  or  a  cadence  from  another  poet 
as  he  would  a  figure  or  a  simile  from  a  flower,  or  a 
5  river,  stream,  or  any  object  which  struck  him  in  his 
walk,  or  contemplation  of  nature.  He  began  to 
imitate  at  an  early  age;*  and  taught  himself  to 
write  by  copying  printed  books.  Then  he  passed 
into  the  hands  of  the  priests,  and  from  his  first 
10  clerical  master,  who  came  to  him  when  he  was  eight 
years  old,  he  went  to  a  school  at  Twyford,  and 
another  school  at  Hyde  Park,  at  which  places  he 
unlearned    all    that  he  had  got  from  his  first  in- 


*  "  Waller,  Spenser,  and  Dryden  were  Mr.  Pope's  great  favourites, 

15  in  the  order  they  are  named,  in  his  first  reading,  till  he  was  about 
twelve  years  old." — Pope.     Spence's  Anecdotes. 

"  Mr.  Pope's  father  (who  was  an  honest  merchant,  and  dealt  in 
Hollands,  wholesale)  was  no  poet,  but  he  used  to  set  him  to  make 
English  verses  when  very  young.     He  was  pretty  difficult  in  being 

20  pleased;  and  used  often  to  send  him  back  to  new  turn  them.  '  These 
are  not  good  rhimes;  '  for  that  was  my  husband's  word  for  verses." 
— Pope's  Mother.    Sf'ence. 

"  I  wrote  things,  I'm  ashamed  to  say  how  soon.  Part  of  an  Epic 
Poem  when  about  twelve.     The  scene  of  it  lay  at  Rhodes  and  some 

2-5  of  the  neighbouring  islands;  and  the  poem  opened  under  water 
with  a  description  of  the  Court  of  Neptune." — Pope.     Ibid. 

"  His  perpetual  application  (after  he  set  to  study  of  himself)  re- 
duced him  in  four  years'  time  to  so  bad  a  state  of  health,  that, 
after  trying  physicians  for  a  good  while  in  vain,  he  resolved  to  give 

30 way  to  his  distemper;  and  sat  down  calmly  in  a  full  expectation 
of  death  in  a  short  time.  Under  this  thought,  he  wrote  letters  to 
take  a  last  farewell  of  ^ome  of  his  more  particular  friends,  and, 
among  the  rest,  one  to  the  Abbe  Southcote.  The  Abbe  was  ex- 
tremely concerned  both  for  his  very  ill  state  of  health  and  the  reso- 

35  lution  he  said  he  had  taken.  He  thought  there  might  yet  be  hope, 
and  went  immediately  to  Dr.  Radcliffe,  with  whom  he  was  well 
acquainted,  told  him  Mr.  Pope's  case,  got  full  directions  from  him, 
and  carried  them  down  to  Pope  in  Windsor  Forest.  The  chief 
thing  the  Doctor  ordered   him  was  to  apply  less,  and  to  ride  every 

40  day.  The  following  his  advice  soon  restored  him  to  his  health." — 
Pope.    Spence. 


I/O  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

structor.  At  twelve  years  old,  he  went  with  his 
father  into  Windsor  Forest,  and  there  learned  for 
a  few  months  under  a  fourth  priest.  "  And  this  was 
all  the  teaching  I  ever  had,"  he  said,  "  and  God 
knows  it  extended  a  very  little  way."  5 

When  he  had  done  with  his  priests  he  took  to 
reading  by  himself,  for  which  he  had  a  very  great 
eagerness  and  enthusiasm,  especially  for  poetry. 
He  learnt  versification  from  Dryden,  he  said.  In 
his  youthful  poem  of  "  Alcander,"  he  imitated  every  lo 
poet,  Cowley,  Milton,  Spenser,  Statins,  Homer, 
Virgil.  In  a  few  years  he  had  dipped  into  a  great 
number  of  the  English,  French,  Italian,  Latin,  and 
Greek  poets.  "  This  I  did,"  he  says,  "  without  any 
design,  except  to  amuse  myself;  and  got  the  Ian-  15 
guages  by  hunting  after  the  stories  in  the  several 
poets  I  read,  rather  than  read  the  books  to  get  the 
languages.  I  followed  everywhere  as  my  fancy  led 
me,  and  was  like  a  boy  gathering  flowers  in  the 
fields  and  woods,  just  as  they  fell  in  his  way.  These  20 
five  or  six  years  I  looked  upon  as'  the  happiest  in 
my  life."  Is  not  here  a  beautiful  holiday  picture? 
The  forest  and  the  fairy  story-book — the  boy  spell- 
ing Ariosto  or  Virgil  under  the  trees,  battling  with 
the  Cid  for  the  love  of  Chimene,  or  dreaming  of  25 
Armida's  garden— peace  and  sunshine  round  about 
— the  kindest  love  and  tenderness  waiting  for  him 
at  his  quiet  home  yonder — and  Genius  throbbing 
in  his  young  heart,  and  whispering  to  him,  "  You 
shall  be  great,  you  shall  be  famous;  you  too  shall  3o 
love  and  sing;  you  will  sing  her  so  nobly  that  some 
kind  heart  shall  forget  you  are  weak  and  ill  formed. 


PRIOR,   GA  V,  AND    POPE  17 1 

Every  poet  had  a  love.  Fate  must  give  one  to  you 
too," — and  day  by  day  he  walks  the  forest,  very 
likely  looking  out  for  that  charmer.  "  They  were 
the  happiest  days  of  his  life,"  he  says,  when  he  was 

5  only  dreaming  of  his  fame:  when  he  had  gained 
that  mistress  she  was  no  consoler. 

That  charmer  made  her  appearance,  it  would 
seem,  about  the  year  1705,  when  Pope  was  seven- 
teen.   Letters  of  his  are  extant,  addressed  to  a  cer- 

10  tain  Lady  M ,  whom  the  youth  courted,  and 

to  whom  he  expressed  his  ardour  in  language,  to 
say  no  worse  of  it,  that  is  entirely  pert,  odious,  and 
afifected.  He  imitated  love-compositions  as  he  had 
been   imitating  love-poems  just  before — it  was   a 

15  sham  mistress  he  courted,  and  a  sham  passion,  ex- 
pressed as  became  it.  These  unlucky  letters  found 
their  way  into  print  years  afterwards,  and  were  sold 
to  the  congenial  Mr.  Curll.  If  any  of  my  hearers, 
as  I  hope  they  may,  should  take  a  fancy  to  look  at 

20  Pope's  correspondence,  let  them  pass  over  that  first 
part  of  it;  over,  perhaps'  almost  all  Pope's  letters 
to  women ;  in  which  there  is  a  tone  of  not  pleasant 
gallantry,  and,  amidst  a  profusion  of  compliments 
and  politenesses,  a  something  which  makes  one  dis- 

J5  trust  the  little  pert,  prurient  bard.  There  is  very 
little  indeed  to  say  about  his  loves,  and  that  little 
not  edifying.  He  wrote  flames  and  raptures  and 
elaborate  verse  and  prose  for  Lady  Mary  Wortley 
Montagu;    but  that  passion  probabl>    came   to   a 

30  climax  in  an  impertinence,  and  was  extinguished 
by  a  box  on  the  ear,  or  some  such  rebuff,  and  he  be- 
gan on  a  sudden  to  hate  her  with  a  fervour  much 


172  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

more  genuine  than  that  of  his  love  had  been.  It 
was  a  feeble  puny  grimace  of  love,  and  paltering 
with  passion.  After  Mr.  Pope  had  sent  ofif  one  of 
his  fine  compositions  to  Lady  Mary,  he  made  a 
second  draft  from  the  rough  copy,  and  favoured  5 
some- other  friend  with  it.  He  was  so  charmed  with 
the  letter  of  Gay's  that  I  have  just  quoted,  that  he 
had  copied  that  and  amended  it,  and  sent  it  to  Lady 
Mary  as  his  own.*  A  gentleman  who  writes  letters 
a  deux  fins,  and  after  having  poured  out  his  heart  10 
to  the  beloved,  serves  up  the  same  dish  rechauffe 
to  a  friend,  is  not  very  much  in  earnest  about  his 
loves,  however  much  he  may  be  in  his  piques  and 
vanities  when  his  impertinence  gets  its  due. 

But,  save  that  unlucky  part  of  the  "  Pope  Cor-  15 
respondence,"  I  do.  not  know,  in  the  range  of  our 
literature,  volumes  more  delightful. f     You  live  in 

•  [See  note  on  p.  i68.  Pope,  however,  was  capable  of  very  similar 
performances.] 

t  Mr.  Pope  to  the  Rev.  Mr.  Broom,  Pulham,  Norfolk.  20 

"  Aug.  29,   1730. 
Dear    Sir, — I    intended    to    write    to    you    on    this    melancholy 
subject,  the  death  of  Mr.   Fenton,  before  yours  came,  but  stayed  to 
have  informed  myself  and  you  of  the  circumstances  of  it.     All  I  hear 
is,    that   he   felt    a   gradual    decay,   though    so    early   in    life,    and   was  25 
declining    for    five   or    six    months.      It    was   not,    as    I    apprehended, 
the   gout   in   his  stomach,   but,   I   believe,   rather  a  complication   first 
of   gross    humours,    as   he   was   naturally   corpulent,    not    discharging 
themselves,    as   he   used    no    sort    of   exercise.      No   man    better   bore 
the  approaches  of  his  dissolution   (as  I  am  told),  or  with  less  osten-  30 
tation    yielded   up   his   being.     The   great    modesty   which   you    know 
was  natural  to  him,  and  the  great  contempt  he  had  for  all   sorts  of 
vanity  and   parade,  never  appeared   more  than   in  his  last  moments: 
he  had  a  conscious  satisfaction  (no  doubt)  in  acting  right,  in  feeling 
himself  honest,   true,   and   unpretending   to   more   than   his  own      So  35 
he  died  as  he  lived,  with  that   secret,  yet  sufficient  contentment. 

"  As  to  any  papers  left  behind  him,  I  dare  say  they  can  be  but 
few;  for  this  reason,  he  never  wrote  out  of  vanity,  or  thought  much 
of  the  applause  of  men.    I  know  an  instance  when  he  did  his  utmost 


PRIOR,   GAY,  AND   POPE  1 73 

them  in  the  finest  company  in  the  world.  A  Httle 
stately,  perhaps;  a  little  apprcte  and  conscious  that 
they  are  speaking  to  whole  generations  who  are 
listening;   but  in  the  tone  of  their  voices — pitched, 

5  to  conceal  his  own  merit  that  way;  and  if  we  join  to  this  his  natural 
love  of  ease,  I  fancy  we  must  expect  little  of  this  sort:  at  least,  I 
have  heard  of  none,  except  some  few  further  remarks  on  Waller 
(which  his  cautious  integrity  made  him  leave  an  order  to  be  given 
to  Mr.  Tonson),  and  perhaps,  though  it  is  many  years  since  I  saw 
'O  it,  a  translation  of  the  first  book  of  Oppian.  He  had  begun  a  tragedy 
of  Dion,  but  made  small  progress  in  it. 

"  As  to  his  other  affairs,  he  died  poor  but  honest,  leaving  no 
debts  or  legacies,  except  of  a  few  pounds  to  Mr.  Trumbull  and  my 
lady,  in  token  of  respect,  gratefulness,  and  mutual  esteem. 
5  "  I  shall  with  pleasure  take  upon  me  to  draw  this  amiable,  quiet, 
deserving,,  unpretending.  Christian,  and  philosophical  character  in 
his  epitaph.  There  truth  may  be  spoken  in  a  few  words;  as  for 
flourish,  and  oratory,  and  poetry,  I  leave  them  to  younger  and  more 
lively  -writers,  such  as  love  writing  for  writing's  sake,  and  would 
20  rather  show  their  own  fine  parts  than  report  the  valuable  ones  of 
any  other  man.     So  the  elegy  I  renounce. 

"  I   condole  with  you   from   my  heart  on  the  loss  of  so  worthy  a 
man,  and  a  friend  to  us  both.  .  .  . 

"  Adieu;    let  us  love  his  memory  and  profit  by  his  example.     Am 
25  very  sincerely,  dear  sir, 

"  Your  affectionate  and  real  servant." 

To  the  Earl  of  Burlington. 

"  August  1 7 14. 
"  My  Lord, — If  your  mare  could   speak,   she  would   give   you  an 
30  account  of  what  extraordinary  company  she  had  on  the  road,  which, 
since  she  cannot  do,   I  will. 

"  It    was    the    enterprising    Mr.    Lintot,    the    redoubtable    rival    of 

Mr.     Tonson,    who,     mounted    on    a    stone-horse,    overtook    me    in 

Windsor  Forest.     He  said  he  heard  I  designed  for  Oxford,  the  seat 

35  of  the  Muses,  and  would,  as  my  bookseller,  by  all  means  accompany 

me  thither. 

"  I  asked  him  where  he  got  his  horse  ?  He  answered  he  got  it 
of  his  publisher;  '  for  that  rogue,  my  printer,'  said  he,  '  disappointed 
me.  I  hoped  to  put  him  in  good  humour  by  a  treat  at  the  tavern 
40  of  a  brown  fricassee  of  rabbits,  which  cost  ten  shillings,  with  two 
quarts  of  wine,  besides  my  conversation.  I  thought  myself  cock- 
sure of  his  horse,  which  he  readily  promised  me,  but  said  that  Mr. 
Tonson  had  just  such  another  design  of  going  to  Cambridge,  ex- 
pecting there  the  copy  of  a  new  kind  of  Horace  from  Dr.  ;    and 

45  if   Mr.    Tonson   went,   he   was   pre-engaged   to   attend   hiar^,   being   to 
have  the  printing  of  the  said  copy.     So,  in  short,  I  borrowed  this 


1/4  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

as  no  doubt  they  are,  beyond  the  mere  conversation 
key — in  the  expression  of  their  thoughts,  their 
various  views  and  natures,  there  is  something 
generous,  and  cheering,  and  ennobhng.     You  are 

stone-horse  of  my  publisher,  which  he  had  of  Mr.  Oldmixon  for  a  5 
debt.  He  lent  me,  too,  the  pretty  boy  you  see  after  me.  He  was 
a  smutty  dog  yesterday,  and  cost  me  more  than  two  hours  to  wash 
the  ink  off  his  face;  but  the  devil  is  a  fair-conditioned  devil,  and 
very  forward  in  his  catechism.  If  you  have  any  more  bags,  he  shall 
carry  them.'  lO 

"  I  thought  Mr.  Lintot's  civility  not  to  be  neglected,  so  gave  the 
boy  a  small  bag  containing  three  shirts  and  an  Elzevir  Virgil,  and, 
mounting  in  an  instant,  proceeded  on  the  road,  with  my  man  before, 
my  courteous  stationer  beside,  and  the  aforesaid  devil  behind. 

"  Mr.  Lintot  began  in  this  manner:  '  Now,  damn  them  !  What  if  15 
they  should  put  it  into  the  newspaper  how  you  and  I  went  together 
to  Oxford  ?  What  would  I  care  ?  If  I  should  go  down  into  Sussex, 
they  would  say  I  was  gone  to  the  Speaker;  but  what  of  that  ?  If 
my  son  were  but  big  enough  to  go  on  with  the  business,  by  G-d,  1 
would  keep  as  good  company  as  old  Jacob.'  20 

"  Hereupon,  I  inquired  of  the  son.  '  The  lad,'  says  he,  '  has  fine 
parts,  but  is  somewhat  sickly,  much  as  you  are.  I  spare  for  nothing 
in  his  education  at  Westminster.  Pray,  don't  you  think  Westminster 
to  be  the  best  school  in  England  ?  Most  of  the  late  Ministry  came 
out  of  it;  so  did  many  of  this  Ministry.  I  hope  the  boy  will  make  25 
his  fortune.' 

"  '  Don't  you  design  to  let  him  pass  a  year  at  Oxford  ?  '  'To 
what  purpose  ?  '  said  he.  '  The  Universities  do  but  make  pedants, 
and  I  intend  to  breed  him  a  man  of  business.' 

"  As  Mr.  Lintot  was  talking  I  observed  he  sat  uneasy  on  his  30 
saddle,  for  which  I  expressed  some  solicitude.  '  Nothing,'  says  he. 
'I  can  bear  it  well  enough;  but,  since  we  have  the  day  before  us, 
methinks  it  would  be  very  pleasant  for  you  to  rest  awhile  under  the 
woods.'  When  we  were  alighted,  '  See,  here,  what  a  mighty  pretty 
Horace  I  have  in  my  pocket  !  What  if  you  amused  yourself  in  35 
turning  an  ode  till  we  mount  again  ?  Lord  !  if  you  pleased,  what 
a  clever  miscellany  might  you  make  at  leisure  hours  !  '  '  Perhaps 
I  may,'  said  I,  'if  we  ride  on:  the  motion  is  an  aid  to  my  fancy; 
a  round  trot  very  much  awakens  my  spirits;  then  jog  on  apace,  and 
I'll  think  as  hard  as  I  can.'  4" 

"  Silence  ensued  for  a  full  hour;  after  which  Mr.  Lintot  lugged 
the  reins,  stopped  short,  and  broke  out,  '  Well,  sir,  how  far  have 
you  gone  ?  '  I  answered,  seven  miles.  '  Z — ds,  sir,'  said  Lintot,  '  I 
thought  you  had  done  seven  stanzas.  Oldisworth,  in  a  ramble 
round  Wimbledon  Hill,  would  translate  a  whole  ode  in  half  this  45 
time.  I'll  say  that  for  Oldisworth  [though  I  lost  by  his  Timothy's], 
he  translates  an  ode  of  Horace  the  quickest  of  any  man  in  England. 


PRIOR,   GAY,  AND    POPE  175 

in  the  society  of  men  who  have  filled  the  greatest 
parts  in  the  world's  story — you  are  with  St.  John 
the  statesman;  Peterborough  the  conqueror; 
Swift,  the  greatest  wit  of  all  times;   Gay,  the  kind- 

e.  I  remember  Dr.  King  would  write  verses  in  a  tavern,  three  hours 
after  he  could  not  speak:  and  there  is  Sir  Richard,  in  that  rumbling 
old  chariot  of  his,  between  Fleet  Ditch  and  St.  Giles's  Pound,  shall 
make  you  half  a  Job.' 

"  •  Pray,    Mr.    Lintot,'   said   I,   '  now   you   talk  of  translators,   what 
lO  is  your  method   of  managing  them  ?  '     '  Sir,'  replied   he,   '  these  are 
the   saddest   pack   of   rogues   in   the   world:     in   a   hungry   fit,   they'll 
swear   they   understand   all    the   languages   in    the   universe.      I    have 
known   one  of  them  take  down  a  Greek  book  upon  my  counter  and 
cry,   "  Ah,   this   is   Hebrew,   and   must   read   it  from   the   latter   end." 
15  By  G-d,   I   can  never  be  sure  in  these  fellows,  for  I   neither  under- 
stand Greek,  Latin,  French,  nor  Italian  myself.     But  this  is  my  way: 
I  agree  with  them  for  ten  shillings  per  sheet,  with  a  proviso  that  I 
will  have  their  doings  corrected  with  whom  I  please;    so  by  one  or 
the   other   they  are  led  at  last  to   the  true   sense  of  an   author;    my 
20  judgment    giving    the    negative   to    all    my   translators.'     '  Then    how 
are   you   sure  these  correctors  may  not   impose  upon   you  ?  '     '  Why, 
I  get  any  civil  gentleman  (especially  any  Scotchman)  that  comes  into 
my   shop,   to   read   the   original   to   me   in   English;     by  this   I   know 
whether   my   first   translator  be  deficient,   and   whether   my  corrector 
25  merits  his  money  or  not. 

"  '  I'll  tell  you  what  happened  to  me  last  month.  I  bargained 
with  S for  a  new  version  of  Lucretius,  to  publish  against  Ton- 
son's,  agreeing  to  pay  the  author  so  many  shillings  at  his  producing 
so  many  lines.  He  made  a  great  progress  in  a  very  short  time,  and 
30  I  gave  it  to  the  corrector  to  compare  with  the  Latin;  but  he  went 
directly  to  Creech's  translation,  and  found  it  the  same,  word  for 
word,  all  but  the  first  page.  Now,  what  d'ye  think  I  did  ?  I  arrested 
the  translator  for  a  cheat;  nay,  and  I  stopped  the  corrector's  pay, 
too,  upon  the  proof  that  he  had  made  use  of  Creech  instead  of  the 
35  original.' 

"  '  Pray  tell  me  next  how  you  deal  with  the  critics  ?  '  '  Sir,'  said 
he,  'nothing  more  easy.  I  can  silence  the  most  formidable  of  them: 
the  rich  ones  for  a  sheet  apiece  of  the  blotted  manuscript,  which 
cost  me  nothing;  they'll  go  about  with  it  to  their  acquaintance, 
40  and  pretend  they  had  it  from  the  author,  who  submitted  it  to  their 
correction:  this  has  given  some  of  them  such  an  air,  that  in  time 
they  come  to  be  consulted  with  and  dedicated  to  as  tiptop  critics 
of  the  town.— As  for  the  poor  critics,  I'll  give  you  one  instance  of  my 
management,  by  which  you  may  guess  the  rest:  A  lean  man,  that 
45  looked  like  a  very  good  scholar,  came  to  me  t'other  day;  he  turned 
over  your  Homer,  shook  his  head,  shrugged  up  his  shoulders,  and 
pish'd  at  every  line  of  it.    "  One  would  wonder,"  says  he,  "  at  the 


176 


ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 


liest  laughter, —  it  is  a  privilege  to  sit  in  that  com- 
pany. Delightful  and  generous  banquet!  with  a 
little  faith  and  a  little  fancy  any  one  of  us  here  may 

strange  presumption  of  some  men;    Homer  is  no  such  easy  task  as 

every  stripling,  every  versifier "   he  was  going  on  when  my  wife     5 

called  to  dinner.  "  Sir,"  said  I,  "  will  you  please  to  eat  a  piece  of 
beef  with  me  ?  "  "  Mr.  Lintot,"  said  he,  "  I  am  very  sorry  you 
should  be  at  the  expense  of  this  great  book:  I  am  really  concerned 
on   your  account."     "  Sir,   I   am   much   obliged   to   you:     if  you   can 

dine  upon  a  piece  of  beef,  together  with  a  slice  of  pudding ?  "^  lO 

"  IMr.    Lintot,   I   do  not   say  but   Mr.    Pope,  if  he  would  condescend 

to  advise  with  men  of  learning " — "  Sir,  the  pudding  is  upon  the 

table,  if  you  please  to  go  in."  My  critic  complies;  .he  comes  to  a 
taste  of  your  poetry,  and  tells  me  in  the  same  breath  that  the  book 
is  commendable,  and  the  pudding  excellent.  ^5 

"  '  Now,  sir,'  continued  Mr.  Lintot,  '  in  return  for  the  frankness  I 
have  shown,  pray  tell  me,  is  it  the  opinion  of  your  friends  at  Court 
that  my  Lord  Lansdowne  will  be  brought  to  the  bar  or  not  ?  '  I 
told  him  I  heard  he  would  not,  and  I  hoped  it,  my  Lord  being  one 
I  had  particular  obligations  to. — 'That  may  be,'  replied  Mr.  Lintot;  20 
'  but  by  G —  if  he  is  not,  I  shall  lose  the  printing  of  a  very  good 
trial.' 

"  These,    my    Lord,    are   a   few   traits   with   which   you   discern   the 
genius  of  Mr.  Lintot,  which  I  have  chosen  for  the  subject  of  a  letter. 
I  dropped  him  as  soon  as  I  got  to  Oxford,  and  paid  a  visit  to  my  25 
Lord  Carlton,  at  Middleton.  ...  I  am,"  &c. 

Dr.  Swift  to  Mr.  Pope. 

"  Sept.  29,  1725. 
"  I    am    now   returning    to    the    noble    scene   of   Dublin — into    the 
grand    monde — for    fear    of    burying    my    parts;     to    signalise    myself  30 
among   curates   and   vicars,    and   correct   all   corruptions   crept   in   re- 
lating   to   the   weight    of   bread-and-butter   through    those    dominions 
where    I    govern.    I    have    employed    my    time    (besides    ditching)    in 
finishing,     correcting,     amending,     and     transcribing    my     '  Travels  ' 
[Gulliver's],  in  four  parts  complete,  newly  augmented,  and  intended  35 
for  the  press  when  the  world  shall   deserve  them,  or  rather,  when  a 
printer  shall  be  found  brave  enough  to  venture  his  ears.     I  like  the 
scheme    of    our    meeting    after    distresses    and    dispersions;     but    the 
chief  end  I  propose  to  myself  in  all  my  labours  is  to  vex  the  world 
rather   than   divert  it;     and   if  I   could   compass   that   design  without  40 
hurting  my  own  person  or  fortune,  I  would  be  the  most  indefatigable 
writer  you  have  ever  seen  without  reading.     I  am  exceedingly  pleased 
that  you  have  done  with  translations;    Lord  Treasurer  Oxford  often 
lamented  that  a  rascally  world   should  lay  you  under  a  necessity  of 
misemploying   your   genius   for  so  long  a   time;     but   since   you   will  45 
now   be   so   much   better   employed,   when  you   think   of   the   world. 


PRIOR,  GA  V,  AND   POPE  IJJ 

enjoy  it,  and  conjure  up  those  great  figures  out  of 
the  past,  and  listen  to  their  wit  and  wisdom.  Mind 
that  there  is  always  a  certain  cachet  about   great 

give  it  one  lash  the  more  at  my  request.  I  have  ever  hated  all 
5  nations,  professions,  and  communities;  and  all  my  love  is  towards 
individuals — for  instance,  I  hate  the  tribe  of  lawyers,  but  I  love 
Councillor  Such-a-one  and  Judge  Such-a-one:  it  is  so  with  physicians 
(I  will  not  speak  of  my  own  trade),  soldiers,  English,  Scotch, 
French,  and  the  rest.     But  principally  I  hate  and  detest  that  animal 

lO  called  man — although  I  heartily  love  John,  Peter,  Thomas,  and 
so  forth. 

"...  I  have  got  materials  towards  a  treatise  proving  the  falsity  of 
that  definition  animal  rationale,  and  to  show  it  should  be  only 
rationis  capa.r.  .  .  .  The   matter   is    so   clear  that   it   will   admit   of  no 

15  dispute — nay,  I  will  hold  a  hundred  pounds  that  you  and  I  agree  in 
the  point.  .  .  . 

"  Mr.  Lewis  sent  me  an  account  of  Dr.  Arbuthnot's  illness,  which  is 
a  very  sensible  affliction  to  me,  who,  by  living  so  long  out  of  the  world, 
have   lost   that    hardness    of   heart   contracted    by   years    and    general 

20  conversation.  I  am  daily  losing  friends,  and  neither  seeking  nor 
getting  others.  Oh  !  if  the  world  had  but  a  dozen  of  Arbuthnots 
in  it,  I  would  burn  my  '  Travels  '  !  " 

Mr.  Pope  to  Dr.  Swift. 
,  >    "  October  15,  1725. 

25  "  I  am  wonderfully  pleased  with  the  suddenness  of  your  kind  an- 
swer. It  makes  me  hope  you  are  coming  towards  us,  and  that  yon 
incline  more  and  more  to  your  old  friends.  .  .  .  Here  is  one  [Lord 
Bolingbroke]  who  was  once  a  powerful  planet,  but  has  now  (after 
long  experience  of  all  that  comes  of  shining)   learned  to  be  content 

30  with  returning  to  his  first  point  without  the  thought  or  ambition  of 
shining  at  all.  Here  is  another  [Edward,  Earl  of  Oxford],  who 
thinks  one  of  the  greatest  glories  of  his  father  was  to  have  distin- 
guished and  loved  you,  and  who  loves  you  hereditarily.  Here  is 
Arbuthnot,  recovered  from  the  jaws  of  death,  and  more  pleased  with 

35  the  hope  of  seeing  you  again  than  of  reviewing  a  world,  every  part 
of  which  he  has  long  despised  but  what  is  made  up  of  a  few  meii 
like  yourself.  .  .  . 

"  Our  friend  Gay  is  used  as  the  friends  of  Tories  are  by  Whigs — • 
and  generally  by  Tories  too.     Because  he  had  humour,  lie  was  sup- 

40  posed  to  have  dealt  with  Dr.  Swift,  in  like  manner  as  when  any  one 
had  learning  formerly,  he  was  thought  to  have  dealt  with  the 
devil.  .  .  . 

"Lord  Bolingbroke  had  not  the  least  harm  by  his  fall;  I  wish 
he  had  received  no  more  by  his  other  fall.     But   Lord   Bolingbroke 

45  is  the  most  improved  mind  since  you  saw  him,  that  ever  was  im- 
proved without  shifting  into  a  new  body,  or  being  paiillo  minus  ah 
angelis.    1  have  often  imagined  to  myself,  that  if  ever  all  of  us  meet 


178  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

men — they  may  be  as  mean  on  many  points  as  you 
or  I,  but  they  carry  their  great  air — they  speak  of 
common    hfe    more    largely    and    generously    than 
common  men  flo — they  regard  the  world  with  a 
manlier  countenance,  and  see  its  real  features  more   5 
fairly  than  the  timid  shufflers  who  only  dare  to  look 
up  at  life  through  blinkers,  or  to  have  an  opinion  ' 
when  there  is  a  crowd  to  back  it.     He  who  reads 
these   noble   records    of   a   past   age,    salutes    and 
reverences  the  great  spirits  who  adorn  it.    You  may  10 
go  home  now  and  talk  with  St.  John;    you  may 
take  a  volume  from  your  library  and  listen  to  Swift 
and  Pope. 

Might  I  give  counsel  to  myyounghearer,  I  would 
say  to  him,  Try  to  frequent  the  company  of  your  15 
betters.  In  books  and  life  that  is  the  most  whole- 
some society;  learn  to  admire  rightly;  the  great 
pleasure  of  life  is^  that.  Note  what  the  great  men 
admired;  they  admired  great  things:  narrow  spirits 
admire  basely,  and  worship  meanly.  I  know  noth-  20 
ing  in  any  story  more  gallant  and  cheering  than  the 
love  and  friendship  which  this  company  of  famous 
men  bore  towards  one  another.  There  never  has 
been  a  society  of  men  more  friendly,  as  there  never 

again,  after  so  many  varieties  and  changes,  after  so  much  of  the  25 
old  world  and  of  the  old  man  in  each  of  us  has  been  altered,  that 
scarce  a  single  thought  of  the  one,  any  more  than  a  single  atom  of 
the  other,  remains  just  the  same;  I  have  fancied,  1  say,  that  we 
should  meet  like  the  righteous  in  the  millennium,  quite  in  peace, 
divested  of  all  our  former  passions,  smiling  at  our  past  follies,  and  30 
content  to  enjoy  the  kingdom  of  the  just  in  tranquillity. 

"  I  designed  to  have  left  the  following  page  for  Dr.  Arbuthnot  to 
fill,  but  he  is  so  touched  with  the  period  in  yours  to  me,  concerning 
him,  that  he  intends  to  answer  it  by  a  whole  letter.  .  .  ." 


PRIOR,  GA  V,  AND    POPE  1/9 

was  one  more  illustrious.  Who  dares  quarrel  with 
Mr.  Pope,  great  and  famous  himself,  for  liking  the 
society  of  men  great  and  famous?  and  for  liking 
them  for  the  qualities  which  made  them  so?  A 
5  mere  pretty  fellow  from  White's  could  not  have 
written  the  "  Patriot  King,"  and  would  very  likely 
have  despised  little  Mr.  Pope,  the  decrepit  Papist, 
whom  the  great  St.  John  held  to  be  one  of  the  best 
and  greatest  of  men:  a  mere  nobleman  of  the  Court 
10  could  no  more  have  won  Barcelona,  than  he  could 
have  written  Peterborough's  letters  to  Pope,* 
which  are  as  witty  as  Congreve :  a  mere  Irish  Dean 

*  Of  the  Earl  of  Peterborough,  Walpole  says:— "  He  was  one  of 
those  men  of  careless  wit  and  negligent  grace,  who  scatter  a  thousand 

15  hon-mots  and  idle  verses,  which  we  painful  compilers  gather  and 
hoard,  till  the  authors  stare  to  find  themselves  authors.  Such  was 
this  lord,  of  an  advantageous  figure  and  enterprising  spirit;  as 
gallant  as  Amadis  and  as  brave;  but  a  little  more  expeditious  in  his 
journeys:     for   he   is   said   to   have   seen   more   kings   and   more   pos- 

20  tillions  than  any  man  in  Europe.  ...  He  was  a  man,  as  his  friend 
said,  who  would  neither  live  nor  die  like  any  other  mortal." 

From  the  Earl  of  Peterborough  to  Pope. 

"  You  must  receive  my  letters  with  a  just  impartiality,  and  give 
grains   of  allowance  for  a   gloomy  or  rainy   day;     I    sink   grievously 

25  with  the  weather-glass,  and  am  quite  spiritless  when  oppressed  with 
the  thoughts  of  a  birthday  or  a  return. 

"  Dutiful  affection  was  bringing  me  to  town;  but  undutiful  lazi- 
ness, and  being  much  out  of  order,  keep  me  in  the  country:  how- 
ever, if  alive,   I   must  make  my  appearance  at  the  birthday.  .  .  . 

CO  "  You  seem  to  think  it  vexatious  that  I  shall  allow  you  but  one 
woman  at  a  time  either  to  praise  or  love.  If  I  dispute  with  you  upon 
this  point,  I  doubt  every  jury  will  give  a  verdict  against  me.  So, 
sir,  with  a  Mahometan  indulgence,  I  allow  your  pluralities,  the 
favourite  privilege  of  our  church. 

35  "  I  find  you  don't  mend  upon  correction ;  again  I  tell  you  you 
must  not  think  of  women  in  a  reasonable  way;  you 'know  we  always 
make  goddesses  of  those  we  adore  upon  earth;  and  do  not  all  the 
good  men  tell  us  we  must  lay  aside  reason  in  what  relates  to  the 
Deity  ? 

40      "...  I    should    have    been    glad    of   anything    of    Swift's.      Pray, 


l8o  ENGLISH  HUMOUEISTS 

could  not  have  written  "  Gulliver";  and  all  these 
men  loved  Pope,  and  Pope  loved  all  these  men. 
To  name  his  friends  is  to  name  the  best  men  of  his 
time.  Addison  had  a  senate;  Pope  reverenced  his- 
equals.  He  spoke  of  Swift  with  respect  and  ad-  5 
miration  always.  His  admiration  for  Bolingbroke 
w^as  so  great,  that  when  some  one  said  of  his  friend, 
"  There  is  something  in  that  great  man  which  looks 
as  if  he  was  placed  here  by  mistake,"  "  Yes,"  Pope 
answered,  "  and  when  the  comet  appeared  to  us  a  10 
month  or  two  ago,  I  had  sometimes  an  imagina- 
tion that  it  might  possibly  be  come  to  carry  him 
home  as  a  coach  comes  to  one's  door  for  visitors." 
So  these  great  spirits  spoke  of  one  another.  Show 
me  six  of  the  dullest  middle-aged  gentlemen  that  15 
ever  dawdled  round  a  club  table  so  faithful  and  so 
friendly. 

We  have  said  before  that  the  chief  wnts  of  this 
time,  with  the  exception  of  Congreve,  were  what  we 
should  now  call  men's  men.  They  spent  many  hours  20 
of  the  four-and-twenty,  a  fourth  part  of  each  day 
nearly,  in  clubs  and  cofifee-houses,  where  they 
dined,  drank,  and  smoked.  Wit  and  news  went  by 
word  of  mouth;  a  journal  of  1710  contained  the 
very  smallest  portion  of  one  or  the  other.  The  25 
chiefs  spoke,  the  faithful  liabitiics  sat  round; 
strangers  came  to  wonder  and  listen.  Old  Dryden 
had  his  headquarters  at  "  Will's,"  in  Russell  Street, 

when  you  write  to  him  next,  tell  him  I  expect  him  with  impatience, 
in  a  place  as  odd  and  as  much  out  of  the  way  as  himself.  30 

"  Yours." 

Peterborough    married    Mrs.    Anastasia    Robinson,    the    celebrated 
singer. 


PRIOR,  GAY,  AND   POPE  l8l 

at  the  corner  of  Bow  Street:  at  which  place  Pope 
saw  him  when  he  was  twelve  years  old.  The  com- 
pany used  to  assemble  on  the  first  floor — what  was 
called  the  dining-room  floor  in  those  days — and  sat 
5  at  various  tables  smoking  their  pipes.  It  is  re- 
corded that  the  beaux  of  the  day  thought  it  a  great 
honour  to  be  allowed  to  take  a  pinch  out  of  Dry- 
den's  snufifbox.  When  Addison  began  to  reign, 
he  with  a  certain  crafty  propriety — a  policy  let  us 

lo  call  it — which  belonged  to  his  nature,  set  up  his 
court,  and  appointed  the  officers  of  his  royal  house. 
His  palace  was  "  Button's,"  opposite  "  Will's."  * 
A  quiet  opposition,  a  silent  assertion  of  empire,  dis- 
tinguished  this    great   man.      Addison's    ministers 

15  were  Budgell,  Tickell,  Philips,  Carey;  his  master 
of  the  horse,  honest  Dick  Steele,  who  was  what 
Duroc  was  to  Napoleon,  or  Hardy  to  Nelson:  the 
r.nan  who  performed  his  master's  bidding,  and 
would  have  cheerfully  died  in  his  quarrel.    Addison 

20  lived  with  these  people  for  seven  or  eight  hours 

every  day.     The    male    society  passed  over  their 

punch-bowls  and  tobacco-pipes  about  as  much  time 

as  ladies  of  that  age  spent  over  spadille  and  manille. 

For  a  brief  space,  upon  coming  up  to  town.  Pope 

25  formed  part  of  King  Joseph's  court,  and  was  his 

*  "  Button  had  been  a  servant  in  the  Countess  of  Warwick's 
family,  who,  under  the  patronage  of  Addison,  kept  a  coffee-house 
on  the  south  side  of  Russell  Street,  about  two  doors  from  Covent 
Garden.  Here  it  was  that  the  wits  of  that  time  used  to  assemble. 
30  It  is  said  that  when  Addison  had  suffered  any  vexation  from  the 
Countess,  he  withdrew  the  company  from  Button's  house. 

"  From  the  coffee-house  he  went  again  to  a  tavern,  where  he  often 
sat  late  and  drank  too  much  wine." — Dr.  Johnson. 

Will's  Coffee-house  was  on  the  west  side  of  Bow  Street,  and  "  cor- 
35  ner  of  Russell  Street." — See  Handbook  of  London. 


1 82  .     ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

rather  too  eager  and  obsequious  humble  servant.* 
Dick  Steele,  the  editor  of  the  Tatler,  Mr.  Addison's 
man,  and  his  own  man  too — a  person  of  no  little 
figure  in  the  world  of  letters — patronised  the  young 
poet,  and  set  him  a  task  or  two.  Young  Mr.  Pope  5 
did  the  tasks  very  quickly  and  smartly  (he  had  been 
at  the  feet,  quite  as  a  boy,  of  Wycherley's  f  de- 

*  "  My  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Addison  commenced  in  1712:  I  liked 
him  then  as  well  as  I  liked  any  man,  and  was  very  fond  of  his  con- 
versation. It  was  very  soon  after  that  Mr.  Addison  advised  me  10 
'  not  to  be  content  with  the  applause  of  half  the  nation.'  He  used 
to  talk  much  and  often  to  me,  of  moderation  in  parties:  and  used 
to  blame  his  dear  friend  Steele  for  being  too  much  of  a  party  man. 
He  encouraged  me  in  my  design  of  translating  the  Iliad,  which  was 
begun   that   year,   and   finished   in    1718." — Pope.    Spoice's  Anecdotes.  I5 

"  Addison  had  Budgell,  and  I  think  Philips,  in  the  house  with 
him. — Gay  they  would  call  one  of  my  etrt'cs. — They  were  angry  with 
me  for  keeping  so  much  with  Dr.  Swift  and  some  of  the  late 
Ministry." — Pope.    Spence's  Anecdotes. 

t  To  Mr.  Blount.  20 

"  Jan.  21,  1715-16. 
"  I  know  of  nothing  that  will  be  so  interesting  to  you  at   present 
as   some   circumstances   of   the   last   act   of   that   eminent   comic   poet 
and  our  friend,  Wycherley.     He  had  often  told  me,  and  I  doubt  not 
he  did  all  his  acquaintance,  that  he  would  marry  as  soon  as  his  life  25 
was    despaired    of.      Accordingly,    a    few    days    before    his    death,    he 
underwent  the  ceremony,  and  joined  together  those  two  sacraments 
which   wise  men   say  we   should   be   the   last  to  receive;     for,   if  you 
observe,    matrimony    is    placed    after    extreme    unction    in    our    cate- 
chism,   as    a   kind   of   hint   of  the   order   of  time    in    which   they   are  ?,G 
to  be  taken.     The  old  man  then  lay  down,  satisfied  in  the  conscious- 
ness of  having,  by  this  one  act,  obliged  a  woman  who  (he  was  told) 
had   merit,   and   shown   an   heroic   resentment   of  the   ill-usage   of  his 
next  heir.     Some  hundred  pounds  which  he  had  with  the   ladj'   dis- 
charged his  debts;    a  jointure  of  ;f5oo  a  year  made  her  a  recompence;  35 
and  the  nephew  was  left  to  comfort  himself  as  well  as  he  could  with 
the    miserable    remains    of    a    mortgaged    estate.      I    saw    our    friend 
twice  after  this  was  done — less  peevish  in  his  sickness  than  lie  used 
to  be  in  his  health;    neither  much  afraid  of  dying,  nor  (which  in  him 
had  been  more  likely)   much  ashamed  of  marrying.     The  evening  be-  40 
fore    he    expired,    he    called    his    young    wife    to    the    bedside,    and 
earnestly   entreated    her   not   to    deny    liim    one   request — the    last    he 
should  make.     Upon  her  assurances  of  consenting  to  it,  he  told  !icr: 
'  My   dear,   it   is   only   this— that   you   will    never   marry   an    old    man 


PRIOR,   GAY,  AND    POPE  1 83 

crepit  reputation,  and  propped  up  for  a  year  that 
doting  old  wit):  he  was  anxious  to  be  well  with 
the  men  of  letters,  to  get  a  footing  and  a  recogni- 
tion. He  thought  it  an  honour  to  be  admitted  into 
5  their  company ;  to  have  the  confidence  of  Mr.  Ad- 
dison's friend  Captain  Steele.  His  eminent  parts 
obtained  for  him  the  honour  of  heralding  Addi- 
son's triumph  of  "  Cato "  with  his  admirable 
prologue,  and  heading  the  victorious  procession  as 

10  it  were.  Not  content  with  this  act  of  homage  and 
admiration,  he  wanted  to  distinguish  himself  by 
assaulting  Addison's  enemies,  and  attacked  John 
Dennis  with  a  prose  lampoon,  which  highly  of- 
fended his  lofty  patron.     Mr.  Steele  was  instructed 

15  to  write  to  Mr.  Dennis,  and  inform  him  that  Mr. 
Pope's  pamphlet  against  him  was  written  quite 
without  Mr.  Addison's  approval.*  Indeed,  "  The 
Narrative  of  Dr.   Robert   Norris   on   the   Phrenzy 

again.'     I  cannot  help  remarking  that  sickness,  which  often  destroys 

20  both   wit   and   wisdom,   yet   seldom   has   power   to   remove   that   talent 

which  we  call  humour.     Mr.  Wycherley  showed  his  even  in  his  last 

compliment;     though    I    think    his    request    a    little    hard,    for    why 

should    he    bar    her    from    doubling    her  .jointure   on    the    same   easy 

terms  ? 

25      "  So  trivial  as  these  circumstances  are,  I  should  not  be  displeased 

myself  to  know  such  trifles  when  they  concern  or  characterize   any 

eminent   person.     The   wisest   and   wittiest   of  men   are   seldom   wiser 

or  wittier  than  others  in  these  sober  moments;    at  least,  our  friend 

ended   much   in   the   same  character  he  had  lived   in;     and   Horace's 

30  rule  for  play  may  as  well  be  applied  to  him  as  a  playwright: — 

''"'  Servetur  ad  imum 
Qualis  ab  incepto  processerit  et  sibi  constet.' 

"  I  am,"  &c. 

*  "  Addison,  who  was  no  stranger  to  the  world,  probably  saw  the 

35  selfishness  of  Pope's  friendship;     and  resolving  that  he  should  have 

the   consequences   of   his   officiousness    to    himself,    informed    Dennis 

by    Steel.e    that    he    was    sorry    for    the    insult." — ^Johnson.    Life    of 

Addison. 


1 84  EJ^GLISH  HUMOURISTS 

of  J.  D."  is  a  vulgar  and  mean  satire,  and  such  a 
blow  as  the  magnificent  Addison  could  never  desire 
to  see  any  partisan  of  his  strike  in  any  literary 
quarrel.  Pope  was  closely  allied  with  Swift  when 
he  wrote  this  pamphlet.  It  is  so  dirty  that  it  has  5 
been  printed  in  Swift's  works,  too.  It  bears  the 
foul  marks  of  tlic  master  hand.  Swift  admired  and 
enjoyed  with  all  his  heart  the  prodigious  genius 
of  the  young  Papist  lad  out  of  Windsor  Forest, 
who  had  never  seen  a  university  in  his  life,  and  lo 
came  and  conquered  the  Dons  and  the  doctors  with 
his  wit.  He  applauded,  and  loved  him,  too,  and 
protected  him,  and  taught  him  mischief.  I  wish 
Addison  could  have  loved  him  better.  The  best 
satire  that  ever  has  been  penned  would  never  have  15 
been  written  then;  and  one  of  the  best  characters 
the  world  ever  knew  would  have  been  without  a 
flaw.  But  he  who  had  so  few  equals  could  not  bear 
one,  and  Pope  was  more  than  that.  When  Pope, 
trying  for  himself,  and  soaring  on  his  immortal  20 
young  wings,  found  that  his,  too,  was  a  genius, 
which  no  pinion  of  that  age  could  follow,  he  rose 
and  left  Addison's  company,  settling  on  his  own 
eminence,  and  singing  his  own  song. 

It  was  not  possible  that  Pope  should  remain  a  25 
retainer  of  Mr.  Addison;    nor  likely  that  after  es- 
caping from  his  vassalage  and  assuming  an  inde- 
pendent crown,  the  sovereign  whose  allegiance  he 
quitted  should  view  him  amicably.*     They  did  not 

*  "  While    I    was    heated    with    what    I    heard,    I    wrote   a    letter    to  30 
Mr.   Addison,  to   let   him   know   '  that   I   was   not   unacquainted   with 
this   behaviour   of   his;     that    if   I    was   to   speak   of   hirn    scverelv    in 
return   for  it,   it   should   not  be  in   such   a  dirty  way;     that   I   should 


PRIOR,   GAY,   AND    POPE  1 85 

do  wrong  to  mislike  each  other.  They  but  fol- 
lowed the  impulse  of  nature,  and  the  consequence 
of  position.  When  Bernadotte  became  heir  to  a 
throne,  the  Prince  Royal  of  Sweden  was  naturally 

5  Napoleon's  enemy.  "  There  are  many  passions  and 
tempers  of  mankind,"  says  Mr.  Addison  in  the 
Spectator,  speaking  a  couple  of  years  before  the  lit- 
tle ditiferences  between  him  and  Mr.  Pope  took 
place,  "  which  naturally  dispose  us  to  depress  and 

'o  vilify  the  merit  of  one  rising  in  the  esteem  of  man- 
kind. All  those  who  made  their  entrance  into  the 
world  with  the  same  advantages,  and  were  once, 
looked  on  as  his  equals,  are  apt  to  think  the  fame 
of  his   merits   a   reflection   on   their   own   deserts. 

15  Those  who  were  once  his  equals  envy  and  defame 
him,  because  they  now  see  him  the  superior;  and 
those  who  were  once  his  superiors,  because  they 
look  upon  him  as  their  equal."  Did  Mr.  Addison, 
justly  perhaps  thinking  that,  as  young  Mr.   Pope 

20  had  not  had  the  benefit  of  a  university  education, 
he  couldn't  know  Greek,  therefore  he  couldn't 
translate  Homer,  encourage  his  young  friend  Mr. 
Tickell,  of  Queen's,  to  translate  that  poet,  and  aid 
him  with  his  own  known  scholarship  and  skill?  * 

25  It  was  natural  tliat  Mr.  Addison  should  doubt  of 

rather  tell  hiln  himself  fairly  of  his  faults,  and  allow  his  good  quali- 
ties; and  that  it  should  be  something  in  the  following  manner.' 
I  then  subjoined  the  first  sketch  of  what  has  since  been  called  my 
satire   on   Addison.    He  used   me   very   civilly   ever  after;     and   never 

30  did  me  any  injustice,  that  I  know  of,  from  that  time  to  his  death, 
which  was  about  three  years  after." — Pope.     Spcnce's  Anecdotes. 

*  "  That  Tickell  should  have  been  guilty  of  a  villainy  seems  to  us 
highly  improbable;  that  Addison  should  have  been  guilty  of  a 
villainy  seems  to  us  highly  improbable;  but  that  these  two  men  should 

3^  have  conspired  together  to  commit  a  villainy,  seems,  to  us,  im- 
probable in  a  tenfold  degree."— Macaulay. 


1 86  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

the  learning^  of  an  amateur  Grecian,  should  have  a 
high  opinion  of  Mr,  Tickell,  of  Queen's,  and  should 
help  that  ingenious  young  man.  It  was  natural, 
on  the  other  hand,  that  Mr.  Pope  and  Mr.  Pope's 
friends  should  believe  that  his  counter-translation,  5 
suddenly  advertised  and  so  long  written,  though 
Tickell's  college  friends  had  never  heard  of  it — 
though,  when  Pope  first  wrote  to  Addison  regard- 
ing his  scheme,  Mr.  Addison  knew  nothing  of  the 
similar  project  of  Tickell,  of  Queen's — it  was  jo 
natural  that  Mr.  Pope  and  his  friends,  having  in- 
terests, passions,  and  prejudices  of  their  own, 
should  believe  that  Tickell's  translation  was  but 
an  act  of  opposition  against  Pope,  and  that  they 
should  call  Mr.  Tickell's  emulation  Mr.  Addison's  15 
envy — if  envy  it  were. 

"  And  were  there  one  whose  fires 
True  genius  kindles  and  fair  fame  inspires, 
Blest  with  each  talent  and  eaw  .  art  to  please. 
And  born  to  write,  converse,  and  live  with  ease;        20 
Should  such  a  man,  too  fond  to  rule  alone, 
Bear,  like  the  Turk,  no  brother  near  the  throne; 
View  him  with  scornful  yet  with  jealous  eyes, 
And  hate  for  arts  that  caused  himself  to  rise; 
Damn  with  faint  praise,  assent  with  civil  leer,  25 

And,  without  sneering,  teach  the  rest  to  sneer; 
Willing  to  wound,  and  yet  afraid  to  strike, 
Just  hint  a  fault,  and  hesitate  dislike; 
Alike  reserved  to  blame,  as  to  commend, 
A  timorous  foe,  and  a  suspicious  friend:  30 

Dreading  even  fools,  by  flatterers  besieged, 
And   so   obliging,   that   he   ne'er   obliged: 
Like  Cato,   give  his  little  senate  laws, 
And  sit  attentive  to  his  own  applause; 
While  wits  and  templars  every  sentence  raise,  '0 

And  wonder  with  a  foolish  face  of  praise; 
Who  but  must  laugh,  if  such  a  man  there  be, 
Who  would  not  weep  if  Atticus  were  he  ?  " 


PRIOR,  GAY,  AND    POPE  1 87 

"  I  sent  the  verses  to  Mr.  Addison,"  said  Pope. 
"  and  he  used  me  very  civilly  ever  after."  No  won- 
der he  did.  It  was  shame  very  likely  more  than 
fear  that  silenced  him.  Johnson  recounts  an  inter- 
5  view  between  Pope  and  Addison  after  their  quar- 
rel, in  which  Pope  was  angry,  and  Addison  tried 
to  be  contemptuous  and  calm.  Such  a  weapon  as 
Pope's  must  have  pierced  any  scorn.  It  flashes  for 
ever,  and  quivers  in  Addison's  memory.     His  great 

10  figure  looks  out  on  us  from  the  past — stainless  but 
for  that — pale,  calm,  and  beautiful:  it  bleeds  from 
that  black  wound.  He  should  be  drawn,  like  Saint 
Sebastian,  with  that  arrow  in  his  side.  As  he  sent 
to  Gay  and  asked  his  pardon,  as  he  bade  his  stepson 

15  come  and  see  his  death,  be  sure  he  had  forgiven 
Pope,  when  he  made  ready  to  show  how  a  Christian 
could  die.* 

Pope  then  formed  part  of  the  Addisonian  court 
for  a  short  time,  and  describes  himself  in  his  let- 

20  ters  as  sitting  with  that  coterie  until  two  o'e^s^ck 
in  the  morning  over  punch  and. burgundy  amidst 
the  fumes  of  tobacco.  To  use  an  expression  of  the 
present  day,  the  "pace"  of  those  viveurs' oi  the 
former  age  was  awful.    Peterborough  lived  into  the 

25  *  [This  story  has  been  now  upset  by  the  researches  of  Mr.  Dilke, 
Mr.  Elwin,  and  others;  though,  when  Thackeray  wrote,  it  was  the 
accepted  version.  There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  Addison  ever 
saw  the  verses.  The  statement  is  part  of  an  elaborate  fiction  con- 
cocted by  Pope,  and  supported  by  manufacturing  letters  to  Addison 

30  out  of  letters  really  written  to  another  correspondent.  The  whole 
story  may  be  found  in  the  edition  of  Pope  by  Elwin  and  Courthope, 
and  is  one  of  the  most  curious  cases  of  literary  imposture  on  record. 
It  is  enough  to  say  that  all  stain  has  been  removed  from  Addison's 
character.      Thackeray    would    have    rejoiced    at    that    result,    though 

35  he  would  have  had  to  modify  some  of  the  eulogy  bestowed  upon 
Pope.] 


188  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

very  jaws  of  death;  Godolphin  laboured  all  day  and 
gambled  at  night;  Bolingbroke.*  writing  to  Swift, 
from  Dawley,  in  his  retirement,  dating  his  letter  at 
six  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  rising,  as  he  says, 
refreshed,  serene,  and  calm,  calls  to  mind  the  time  5 
of  his  London  life;  when  about  that  hour  he  used 
to  be  going  to  bed.  surfeited  with  pleasure,  and 
jaded  with  business;  his  head  often  full  of  schemes, 
and  his  heart  as  often  full  of  anxiety.  It  was  too 
hard,  too  coarse  a  life  for  the  sensitive,  sickly  Pope.  10 
He  was  the  only  wit  of  the  day,  a  friend  writes  to 
me,  who  wasn't  fat.f  Swift  was  fat;  Addison  was 
fat;  Steele  was  fat;  Gay  and  Thomson  were  pre- 
posterously fat — all  that  fuddling  and  punch-drink- 
ing, that  club  and  coffee-house  boozing,  shortened  15 
the  lives  and  enlarged  the  waistcoats  of  the  men  of 
that  age.  Pope  w^ithdrew  in  a  great  measure  from 
this  boisterous  London  company,  and  being  put 
into  an  independence  by  the  gallant  exertions  of 

*  Lord  Boliiigbroke  to  the  Three  Yahoos  of  Tzuickenham.  20 

"  July  23,   1726. 

"  Jonathan,    Alexander,   John,    most    excellent   Triumvirs   of 
Parnassus, — Though  you  are  probably  very  indifferent  where  I   am, 
or  what   I   am   doing,   yet   I   resolve  to  believe  the  contrary.     I   per- 
suade  myself   that   you    have   sent   at   least   fifteen   times   within    this  25 
fortnight   to   Dawley   farm,   and  that   you   are   extremely   mortified   at 
my  long  silence.     To  relieve  you,  therefore,  from  this  great  anxiety 
of   mind,    I    can    do   no   less   than   write   a   few   lines   to  you;     and    I 
please   myself  beforehand   with   the   vast   pleasure   which   this   epistle 
must   needs   give   you.     That   I    may   add   to   this   pleasure,   and   give  30 
further   proofs  of  my  beneficent  temper,   I   will  likewise  inform  you, 
that    I    shall    be   in    your   neighbourhood    again   by    the   end   of   next 
week:    by  which  time  I  hope  that  Jonathan's  imagination  of  business 
will   be   succeeded   by  some   imagination   more   becoming  a  professor 
of   that    divine    science,    la   bagatelle.     Adieu.     Jonathan,   Alexander,  35 
John,  mirth  be  with  you  !  " 

t  Prior   must   be  excepted  from   this  observation.     "He   was  lank 
and  lean." 


PRIOR,  GAY,  AND    POPE  1 89 

Swift  *  and  his  private  friends,  and  by  the  enthu- 
siastic national  admiration  which  justly  rewarded 
his  great  achievement  of  the  "  Iliad,"  purchased 
that  famous  villa  of  Twickenham  which  his  song 
Sand  life  celebrated;  duteously  bringing  his  old 
parent  to  live  and  die  there,  entertaining  his  friends 
there,  and  making  occasional  visits  to  London  in 
his  little  chariot,  in  which  Atterbury  compared  him 
to  "  Homer  in  a  nutshell." 

10  "  Mr.  Dryden  was  not  a  genteel  man,"  Pope 
quaintly  said  to  Spence,  speaking  of  the  manner 
and  habits  of  the  famous  old  patriarch  of  *'  Will's." 
With  regard  to  Pope's  own  manners,  we  have  the 
best     contemporary     authority     that     they     were 

15  singularly  refined  and  polished.  With  his  extra- 
ordinary sensibility,  with  his  known  tastes,  with  his 
delicate  frame,  with  his  power  and  dread  of  ridi- 
cule. Pope  could  have  been  no  other  than  what 
we  call  a  highly-bred  person. f     His  closest  friends, 

20  with  the  exception  of  Swift,  were  among  the  de- 
lights and  ornaments  of  the  polished  society  of 
their  age.     Garth,*  the  accomplished  and  benevo- 

*  Swift    exerted    himself   very    much    in    promoting    the    Iliad    sub- 
scription;    and    also    introduced    Pope    to    Harley    and    Bolingbroke. 

25  Pope  realised  by  the  Iliad  upwards  of  £5000,  which  he  laid  out  partly 
in  annuities,  and  partly  in  the  purchase  of  his  famous  villa.  John- 
son remarks  that  "  it  would  be  hard  to  find  a  man  so  well  entitled 
to  notice  by  his  wit,  that  ever  delighted  so  rhuch  in  talking  of  his 
money." 

30  t  "  His  (Pope's)  voice  in  common  conversation  was  so  naturally 
musical,  that  I  remember  honest  Tom  Southerne  used  always  to  call 
him  '  the  little  nightingale.'  " — Orrery. 

%  Garth,    whom    Dryden    calls    "  generous    as    his    Muse,"    was    a 
Yorkshireman.     He   graduated   at    Cambridge,    and   was    made    M.D. 

35  in  1691.  He  soon  distinguished  himself  in  his  profession,  by  his 
poem  of  the  "  Dispensary,"  and  in  society,  and  pronounced  Dryden's 
funeral   oration.     He  was  a   strict   Whig,   a   notable   member  of  the 


IQO  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

lent,  whom  Steele  has  described  so  charmingly,  of 
whom  Codrington  said  that  his  character  was  "  all 
beauty,"  and  whom  Pope  himself  called  the  best  of 
Christians   without   knowing  it;    Arbuthnot,*   one 

"  Kit-Cat,"   and   a   friendly,   convivial,   able   man.     He   was   knighted     c, 
by    George    I.,    with    the    Duke    of    Marlborough's    sword.      He    died 
in  1718. 

*  "  Arbuthnot  was  the  son  of  an  Episcopal  clergyman  in  Scotland, 
and  belonged  to  an  ancient  and  distinguished  Scotch  family.  He  was 
educated  at  Aberdeen;  and,  coming  up  to  London — according  'to  a  lO 
Scotch  practice  often  enough  alluded  to — to  make  his  fortune,  first 
made  him.self  known  by  An  Examinaiion  of  Dr.  Wood-Card's  Account 
of  the  Deluge.  He  became  physician  successively  to  Prince  George 
of  Denmark  and  to  Queen  Anne.  He  is  usually  allowed  to  have 
been  the  most  learned,  as  well  as  one  of  the  most  witty  and  humour-  15 
ous  members  of  the  Scriblerus  Club.  The  opinion  entertained  of 
him  by  the  humourists  of  the  day  is  abundantly  evidenced  in  their 
correspondence.  When  he  found  himself  in  his  last  illness,  he  wrote 
thus,  from  his  retreat  at  Hampstead,  to  Swift: — 

"H.^mpstead:  Oct.  4,  1734.  20 
"  '  My  Dear  and  W^orthy  Friend, — You  have  no  reason  to  put 
me  among  the  rest  of  your  forgetful  friends,  for  I  wrote  two  long 
letters  to  you,  to  which  I  never  receiV'ed  one  word  of  answer.  The 
first  was  about. your  health;  the  last  I  sent  a  great  while  ago,  by  one 
De  la  Mar.  I  can  assure  you  with  great  truth  that  none  of  your  25 
friends  or  acquaintance  has  a  more  warm  heart  towards  you  than 
myself.  I  am  going  out  of  this  troublesome  world,  and  you,  among 
the  rest  of  my  friends,  shall  have  my  last  prayers  and  good  wishes. 

"  '  .  .  .  I   came   out   to   this   place   so   reduced   by  a   dropsy  and   an 
asthma,  that   I   could  neither   sleep,  breathe,  eat,  nor  move.     I   most  30 
earnestly  desired  and  begged  of  God  that  He  would  take  me.     Con- 
trary to  my  expectation,   upon   venturing  to   ride    (which   I   had   for- 
borne for  some  years)   I  recovered  my  strength  to  a  pretty  consider- 
able  degree,   slept,   and   had   my   stomach   again.  .  .  .  What   I    did,   I 
can  assure  you  was  not  for  life,  but  ease;    for  I  am  at  present  in  the  35 
case  of  a  man  that  was  almost  in  harbour,  and  then  blown  back  to 
sea — who   has   a   reasonable   hope   of  going   to   a   good   place,   and   an 
absolute  certainty  of  leaving  a  very  bad  one.     Not  that  I   have  any 
particular  disgust  at  the  world;    for  I   have  as  great  comfort  in   my 
own  family  and   from   the  kindness  of  my  friends  as  any  man;    but  40 
the  world,   in   the   main,   displeases   me,   and   I   have   too  true  a   pre- 
sentiment   of    calamities    that    are    to    befall    my    country.      However, 
if  1  should  have  the  happiness  to  see  you  before  I  die,  you  will  find 
that    I    enjoy    the    comforts    of   life    with    my    usual    cheerfulness.      I 
cannot  imagine  why  you  are  frightened  from  a  journey  to  England:  45 
the   reasons   you   assign   are   not   sufficient — the  journey,    I    am    sure. 


PRIOR,   GA  V,  AND    POPE  IQI 

of  the  wisest,  wittiest,  most  accomplished,  gentlest 
of  mankind;  Bolingbroke,  the  Alcibiades  of  his 
age;  the  generous  Oxford;  the  magnificent,  the 
witty,  the  famous,  and  chivalrous  Peterborough: 
5  these  were  the  fast  and  faithful  friends  of  Pope,  the 
most  brilliant  company  of  friends,  let  us  repeat,  that 

•  the  world  has  ever  seen.  The  favourite  recreation 
of  his  leisure  hours  was  the  society  of  painters, 
whose  art  he  practised.     In  his  correspondence  are 

10  letters  between  him  and  Jervas,  whose  pupil  he 
loved  to  be — Richardson,  a  celebrated  artist  of  his 
time,  and  who  painted  for  him  a  portrait  of  his  old 

would   do   you   good.     In   general,    I   recommend   riding,   of  which   I 
have  always  had  a  good  opinion,  and  can  now  confirm  it  from   my 

1 5  own  experience. 

"  '  My  family  give  you  their  love  and  service.  The  great  loss  I 
sustained  in  one  of  them  gave  me  my  first  shock,  and  the  trouble 
I  have  with  the  rest  to  bring  them  to  a  right  temper  to  bear  the 
loss   of  a   father   who   loves  them,    and   whom   they   love,   is   really   a 

20  most  sensible  affliction  to  me.  I  am  afraid,  my  dear  friend,  we 
shall  never  see  one  another  more  in  this  world.  I  shall,  to  the  last 
moment,  preserve  my  love  and  esteem  for  you,  being  well  assured 
you  will  never  leave  the  paths  of  virtue  and  honour;  for  all  that 
is  in   this  world  is  not   worth   the  least  deviation  from   the  way.     It 

25  will  be  great  pleasure  to  me  to  hear  from  you  sometimes;  for  none 
are  with  more  sincerity  than  I  am,  my  dear  friend,  your  most  faith- 
ful friend  and  humble  servant.'  " 

"  Arbuthnot,"  Johnson  says,  "  was  a  man  of  great  comprehension, 
skilful    in    his    profession,    versed    in    the    sciences,  .acquainted    with 

30  ancient  literature,  and  able  to  animate  his  mass  of  knowledge  by  a 
bright  and  active  imagination;  a  scholar  with  great  brilliance  of  wit; 
a  wit  who,  in  the  crowd  of  life,  retained  and  discovered  a  noble 
ardour  of  religious  zeal." 

Dugald    Stewart   has   testified    to   Arbuthnot's    ability   in   a    depart- 

35  ment  of  which  he  was  particularly  qualified  to  judge:  "  Let  me 
add,  that,  in  the  list  of  philosophical  reformers,  the  authors  of 
Martinus  Scriblcrus  ought  not  to  be  overlooked.  Their  happy  ridicule 
of  the  scholastic  logic  and  metaphysics  is  universally  known;  but 
few    are    aware    of    the    acuteness    and    sagacity    displayed    in    their 

40  allusions  to  some  of  the  most  vulnerable  passages  in  Locke's  Essay. 
In  this  part  of  the  work  it  is  commonly  understood  that  Arbuthnot 

•  had  the  principal  share." — See  Preliminary  Dissertation  to  Encyclopedia 
Britannica,  note  to  p.  242,  and  also  note  b.  b.  b.,  p.  285. 


l9^  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

mother,  and  for  whose  picture  he  asked  and 
thanked  Richardson  in  one  of  the  most  dehghtful 
letters  that  ever  were  penned, t — and  the  wonderful 
Kneller,  who  bragged  more,  spelt  worse,  and 
painted  better  than  any  artist  of  his  day.f  5 

It  is  affecting  to  note,  through  Pope's  corre- 
spondence, the  marked  way  in  which  his  friends, 
the  greatest,  the  most  famous,  and  wittiest  men  of 
the  time — generals  and  statesmen,  philosophers 
and  divines — all  have  a  kind  word  and  a  kind  lo 
thought  for  the  good  simple  old  mother,  whom 
Pope  tended  so  affectionately.  Those  men  would 
have  scarcely  valued  her,  but  that  they  knew  how 
much  he  loved  her,  and  that  they  pleased  him  by 
thinking  of  her.     If  his  early  letters  to  women  are  15 

*  To  Mr.  Richardson. 

"  Twickenham,  ]w\e  lo,   1733. 

"  As  I  know  you  and  I  mutually  desire  to  see  one  another,  I 
hoped  that  this  day  our  wishes  would  have  met,  and  brought  you 
hither.  And  this  for  the  very  reason,  which  possibly  might  hinder  20 
you  coming,  that  my  poor  mother  is  dead.  I  thank  God  her  death 
was  as  easy  as  her  life  was  innocent;  and  as  it  cost  her  not  a  groan, 
or  even  a  sigh,  there  is  yet  upon  her  countenance  such  an  expression 
of  tranquillity,  nay,  almost  of  pleasure,  that  if  is  even  amiable  to 
behold  it.  It  would  afford  the  finest  image  of  a  saint  expired  that  25 
ever  painting  drew;  and  it  would  be  the  greatest  obligation  which 
even  that  obliging  art  could  ever  bestow  on  a  friend,  if  you  could 
come  and  sketch  it  for  me.  I  am  sure,  if  there  be  no  very  prevalent 
obstacle,  you  will  leave  any  common  business  to  do  this;  and  I 
hope  to  see  you  this  evening,  as  late  as  you  will,  or  to-morrow  30 
morning  as  early,  before  this  winter  flower  is  faded.  I  will  defer 
her  interment  till  to-morrow  night.  I  know  you  love  me,  or  I  could 
not  have  written  this — I  could  not  (at  this  time)  have  written  at 
all.     Adieu  !     May  you  die  as  happily  !  Yours,"   &c. 

t  "  Mr.  Pope  was  with  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller  one  day,  when  his  3i) 
nephew,  a  Guinea  trader,  came  in.  '  Nephew,'  said  Sir  Godfrey, 
'  you  have  the  honour  of  seeing  the  two  greatest  men  in  the  world.' 
'  I  don't  know  how  great  you  may  be,'  said  the  Guinea  man,  '  but 
I  don't  like  your  looks:  I  have  often  bought  a  man  much  better 
than  both  of  you  together,  all  muscles  and  bones,  for  ten  guineas.'  "  4'-^ 
— Dr.  Warburton.    Spcncc's  Anecdotes. 


PRIOR,   GA  V,  AND    POPE  193 

affected  and  insincere,  whenever  he  speaks  about  this 
one,  it  is  with  a  childish  tenderness  and  an  almost 
sacred  simplicity.  In  1713,  when  young  Mr.  Pope 
had,  by  a  series  of  the  most  astonishing  victories 

5  and  dazzling  achievements,  seized  the  crown  of 
poetry,  and  the  town  was  in  an  uproar  of  admira- 
tion, or  hostility,  for  the  young  chief;  when  Pope 
was  issuing  his  famous  decrees  for  the  translation 
of  the  "  Iliad  ";   when  Dennis  and  the  lower  critics 

10 were  hooting  and  assailing  him;  when  Addison 
and  the  gentlemen  of  his  court  were  sneering  with 
sickening  hearts  at  the  prodigious  triumphs  of  the 
young  conqueror;  when  Pope,  in  a  fever  of  victory, 
and  genius,  and  hope,  and  anger,  was  struggling 

15  through  the  crowd  of  shouting  friends  and  furious 
detractors  to  his  temple  of  Fame,  his  old  mother 
writes  from  the  country,  "  My  deare,"  says  she — 
"  my  deare,  there's  Mr.  Blount,  of  Mapel  Durom, 
dead  the  same  day  that  Mr.  Inglefield  died.     Your 

20  sister  is  well;  but  your  brother  is  sick.  My  service 
to  Mrs.  Blount,  and  all  that  ask  of  me.  I  hope  to 
hear  from  you,  and  that  you  are  well,  which  is  my 
daily  prayer;  and  this  with  my  blessing."  The 
triumph  marches  by,  and  the  car  of  the  young  con- 

25  queror,  the  hero  of  a  hundred  brilliant  victories: 
the  fond  mother  sits  in  the  quiet  cottage  at  home 
and  says,  "  I  send  you  my  daily  prayers,  and  I  bless 
you,  my  deare." 

In  our  estimate  of  Pope's  character,  let  us  al- 

30  ways  take  into  account  that  constant  tenderness 
and  fidelity  of  affection  which  pervaded  and  sanc- 
tified his  life,  and  never  forget  that  maternal  bene- 


i94  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

diction.*  It  accompanied  him  always:  his  Hfe 
seems  purified  by  those  artless  and  heartfelt 
prayers.  And  he  seems  to  have  received  and.  de- 
served the  fond  attachment  of  the  other  members 
of  his  family.  It  is  not  a  little  touching  to  read  in  5 
Spence  of  the  enthusiastic  admiration  with  which 
his  half-sister  regarded  him,  and  the  simple  anec- 
dote by  which  she  illustrates  her  love.  "  I  think  no 
man  was  ever  so  little  fond  of  money."  Mrs. 
Rackett  says  about  her  brother,  "  I  think  my  10 
brother  when  he  was  young  read  more  books  than 
any  man  in  the  world ;  "  and  she  falls  to  telling 
stories  of  his  schooldays,  and  the  manner  in  which 
his  master  at  Twyford  ill-used  him.  "  I  don't  think 
my  brother  knew  what  fear  was,"  she  continues;  15 
and  the  accounts  of  Pope's  friends  bear  out  this 
character  for  courage.  When  he  had  exasperated 
the  dunces,  and  threats  of  violence  and  personal 
assault  were  brought  to  him,  the  dauntless  little 
champion  never  for  one  instant  allowed  fear  to  20 
disturb  him,  or  condescended  to  take  any  guard  in 
his  daily  walks  except  occasionally  his  faithful  dog 
to  bear  him  company.  "  I  had  rather  die  at  once," 
said  the  gallant  little  cripple,  "  than  live  in  fear  of 

those  rascals." 

25 

As  for  his  death,  it  was  what  the  noble  Arbuthnot 

•  Swift's  mention  of  him  as  one 

"  whose  filial  piety  excels 
Whatever  Grecian  story  tells," 

is  well   known.     And   a   sneer  of  W^alpole's   may   be   put   to   a   bettei  30 
use  than  he  ever  intended  it  for,  a  fropos  of  this  subject.     He  chari- 
tably   sneers,    in    one    of   his    letters,    at    Spence's    "  fondling   an    old 
mother — in   imitation  of  Pope  !  " 


PRIOR,   GAY,  AND    POPE  IQS 

asked  and  enjoyed  for  himself — a  euthanasia — a 
beautiful  end.  A  perfect  benevolence,  affection, 
serenity  hallowed  the  departure  of  that  high  soul. 
Even  in  the  very  hallucinations  of  his  brain,  and 

5  weaknesses  of  his  delirium,  there  was  something  al- 
most sacred.  Spence  describes  him  in  his  last  days, 
looking  up  and  with  a  rapt  gaze  as  if  something  had 
suddenly  passed  before  him.  "  He  said  to  me, 
'  What's  that?  '  pointing  into  the  air  with  a  very 

lo  steady  regard,  and  then  looked  down  and  said,  with 
a  smile  of  the  greatest  softness,  '  'Twas  a  vision!  '  " 
He  laughed  scarcely  ever,  but  his  companions  de- 
scribe his  countenance  as  often  illuminated  by  a 
peculiar  sweet  smile. 

15  "  When,"  said  Spence,*  the  kind  anecdotist 
whom  Johnson  despised — "  when  I  was  telling 
Lord  Bolingbroke  that  Mr.  Pope,  on  every  catch- 
ing and  recovery  of  his  mind,  was  always  saying 
something  kindly  of  his  present  or  absent  friends; 

20  and  that  this  was  so  surprising,  as  it  seemed  to  mc 
as  if  humanity  had  outlasted  understanding.  Lord 
Bolingbroke  said,  '  It  has  so,'  and  then  added,  '  I 
never  in  my  life  knew  a  man  who  had  so  tender  a 
heart  for  his  particular  friends,  or  a  more  general 

25  friendship  for  mankind.  I  have  known  him  these 
thirty  years,  and  value  myself  more  for  that  man's 
love    than '      Here,"   Spence    says,    "  St.    John 

*  Joseph  Spence  was  the  son  of  a  clergyman,  near  Winchester. 
He  was  a   short  time  at   Eton,   and   afterwards   became   a   Fellow   of 

30  New  College,  Oxford,  a  clergyman,  and  professor  of  poetry.  He  was 
a  friend  of  Thomson's,  whose  reputation  he  aided.  He  published  an 
Essay  on  the  Odyssey  in  1726,  which  introduced  him  to  Pope.  Every- 
body liked  him.  His  Anecdotes  were  placed,  while  still  in  MS.,  at  the 
service  of  Johnson  and  also  of  Malone.    They  were  published  by  Mr. 

35  Singer  in  18^0. 


19^  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS  * 

sunk  his  head  and  lost  his  voice  in  tears."  The  sob 
which  finishes  the  epitaph  is  finer  than  words.  It 
is  the  cloak  thrown  over  the  father's  face  in  the 
famous  Greek  picture,  which  hides  the  grief  and 
heightens  it.  5 

In  Johnson's  "  Life  of  Pope  "  you  will  find  de- 
scribed, with  rather  a  malicious  minuteness,  some 
of  the  personal  habits  and  infirmities  of  the  great 
little  Pope.  His  body  was  crooked,  he  was  so  short 
that  it  was  necessary  to  raise  his  chair  in  order  to  lo 
place  him  on  a  level  with  other  people  at  table.* 
He  was  sewed  up  in  a  buckram  suit  every  morn- 
ing, and  required  a  nurse  like  a  child.  His  con- 
temporaries reviled  these  misfortunes  with  a 
strange  acrimony,  and  made  his  poor  deformed  15 
person  the  butt  for  many  a  bolt  of  heavy  wit.  The 
facetious  Mr.  Dennis,  in  speaking  of  him,  says,  "  If 
you  take  the  first  letter  of  Mr.  Alexander  Pope's 
Christian  name,  and  the  first  and  last  letters  of  his 
surname,  you  have  A.  P.  E."  Pope  catalogues,  at  20 
the  end  of  the  "  Dunciad,"  with  a  rueful  precision, 
other  pretty  names,  besides  Ape,  which  Dennis 
called  him.  That  great  critic  pronounced  Mr.  Pope 
a  little  ass,  a  fool,  a  coward,  a  Papist,  and  there- 
fore a  hater  of  Scripture,  and  so  forth.  It  must  be  25 
remembered  that  the  pillory  was  a  flourishing  and 

*  Tie  speaks  of  Arbuthnot's  liaving  helped  him  through  "  that  long 
disease,  my  life."  But  not  only  was  he  so  feeble  as  is  implied  in 
his  use  of  the  "  buckram,"  hut  "  it  now  appears,"  says  JMr.  Peter 
Cunningham,  "  from  his  unpublished  letters  that,  like  Lord  Hervey,  3° 
he  had  recourse  to  ass's  milk  for  the  preservation  of  his  health." 
It  is  to  his  lordship's  use  of  that  simple  beverage  that  he  alludes 
when  he  says — 

"  Let  Sporus  tremble  !— A.    What,  that  thing  of  silk 

Sporus,  that  mere  white-curd  of  ass's  milk  ?  "  35 


■   PRIOR,   GA  Y,  AND    POPE  197 

popular  institution  in  those  days.  Authors  stood 
in  it  in  the  body  sometimes:  and  dragged  their 
enemies  thither  morally,  hooted  them  with  foul 
abuse  and  assailed  them  with  garbage  of  the  gutter. 
5  Poor  Pope's  figure  was  an  easy  one  for  those 
clumsy  caricaturists  to  draw.  Any  stupid  hand 
could  draw  a  hunchback  and  write  Pope  under- 
neath. They  did.  A  libel  was  published  against 
Pope,  with  such  a  frontispiece.    This  kind  of  rude 

'"jesting  was  an  evidence  not  only  of  an  ill  nature, 
but  a  dull  one.  When  a  child  makes  a  pun,  or  a 
lout  breaks  out  into  a  laugh,  it  is  some  very  obvious 
combination  of  words,  or  discrepancy  of  objects, 
which  provokes  the  infantine  satirist,  or  tickles  the 

'5  boorish  wag;  and  many  of  Pope's  revilers  laughed 
not  so  much  because  they  were  wicked,  as  because 
they  knew  no  better. 

Without  the  utmost  sensibility,  Pope  could  not 
have  been  the  poet  he  was;    and  through  his  life, 

2o  however  much  he  protested  that  he  disregarded 
their  abuse,  the  coarse  ridicule  of  his  opponents 
stung  and  tore  him.  One  of  Gibber's  pamphlets 
coming  into  Pope's  hands,  whilst  Richardson  the 
painter  was  with  him.  Pope  turned  round  and  said, 

25  "  These  things  are  my  diversions;"  and  Richard- 
son, sitting  by  whilst  Pope  perused  the  libel,  said  he 
saw  his  features  "  writhing  with  anguish."  How 
little  human  nature  changes!  Can't  one  see  that 
little    figure?      Can't    one    fancy    one    is    reading 

30  Horace?  Can't  one  fancy  one  is  speaking  of  to- 
day? 

The  tastes  and  sensibilities  of  Pope,  which  led 


198  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

him  to  cultivate  the  society  of  persons  of  fine  man- 
ners, or  wit,  or  taste,  or  beauty,  caused  him  to 
shrink  equally  from  that  shabby  and  boisterous 
crew  which  formed  the  rank  and  file  of  literature 
in  his  time:  and  he  was  as  unjust  to  these  men  as  5 
they  to  him.  The  delicate  little  creature  sickened 
at  habits  and  company  which  were  quite  tolerable 
to  robuster  men:  and  in  the  famous  feud  between 
Pope  and  the  Dunces,  and  without  attributing  any 
peculiar  wrong  to  either,  one  can  quite  understand  10 
how  the  two  parties  should  so  hate  each  other.  As 
I  fancy,  it  was  a  sort  of  necessity  that  when  Pope's 
triumph  passed,  Mr.  Addison  and  his  men  should 
look  rather  contemptuously  down  on  it  from  their 
balcony;  so  it  was  natural  for  Dennis  and  Tibbald,  15 
and  Welsted  and  Gibber,  and  the  worn  and  hungry 
pressmen  in  the  crowd  below,  to  howl  at  him  and 
assail  him.  And  Pope  was  more  savage  to  Grub 
Street  than  Grub  Street  was  to  Pope.  The  thong 
with  which  he  lashed  them  was  dreadful;  he  fired  20 
upon  that  howling  crew  such  shafts  of  flame  and 
poison,  he  slew  and  wounded  so  fiercely,  that  in 
reading  the  "  Dunciad  "  and  the  prose  lampoons  of 
Pope,  one  feels  disposed  to  side  against  the  ruthless 
little  tyrant,  at  least  to  pity  those  wretched  folk  on  25 
whom  he  was  so  unmerciful.  Tt  was  Pope,  and 
Swift  to  aid  him,  who  established  among  us  the 
Grub  Street  tradition.  He  revels  in  base  descrip- 
tions of  poor  men's  want;  he  gloats  over  poor 
Dennis's  garret,  and  flannel  nightcap  and  red  stock-  30 
ings;  he  gives  instructions  how  to  find  Gurll's  au- 
thors— the  historian  at  the  tallow-chandler's  under 


PRIOR,   GA  V,  AND    POPE  1 99 

the  blind  arch  in  Petty  France,  the  two  translators 
in  bed  together,  the  poet  in  the  cock-loft  in  Budge 
Row,  whose  landlady  keeps  the  ladder.  It  was 
Pope,  I  fear,  who  contributed,  more  than  any  man 
5  who  ever  lived,  to  depreciate  the  literary  calling. 
It  was  not  an  unprosperous  one  before  that  time, 
as  we  have  seen;  at  least  there  were  great  prizes 
in  the  profession  which  had  made  Addison  a  Minis- 
ter, and  Prior  an  Ambassador,  and  Steele  a  Com- 

10  missioner,  and  Swift  all  but  a  Bishop.  The  pro- 
fession of  letters  was  ruined  by  that  libel  of  the 
"  Dunciad."  *  If  authors  were  wretched  and  poor 
before,  if  some  of  them  lived  in  haylofts,  of  which 
their  landladies  kept  the  ladders,  at  least  nobody 

15  came  to  disturb  them  in  their  straw;  if  three  ot 
them  had  but  one  coat  between  them,  the  two  re- 
mained invisible  in  the  garret,  the  third,  at  any 
rate,  appeared  decently  at  the  coffee-house  and 
paid  his  twopence  like  a  gentleman.     It  was  Pope 

20  that  dragged  into  light  all  this  poverty  and  mean- 
ness, and  held  up  those  wretched  shifts  and  rags  to 
public  ridicule.  It  was  Pope  that  has  made  gen- 
erations of  the  reading  world  (delighted  with  the 
mischief,  as  who  would  not  be  that  reads  it?)  be- 

25  lieve  that  author  and  wretch,  author  and  rags,  au- 
thor and  dirt,  author  and  drink,  gin,  cowheel,  tripe, 
poverty,     duns,     bailiffs,    squalling    children     and 

•■  *  [This    statement    would    require    qualification.      The    Grub    Street 

author  was  probably  worse  off  in  the  time  of  Queen  Anne  than  in 
20  the  time  of  George  II.,  and  the  "  Dunciad  "  really  showed  that 
he  could  make  himself  more  effectually  unpleasant  to  his  superiors. 
The  prizes  of  Queen  Anne's  time  did  not  go  to  the  professional 
author,  but  to  the  authors  who  were  in  a  good  enough  position  to 
be  on  friendly  terms  with  ministers.] 


20O  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

clamorous  landladies,  were  always  associated  to- 
gether. The  condition  of  authorship  began  to  fall 
from  the  days  of  the  "Dunciad":  and  I  believe 
in  my  heart  that  much  of  that  obloquy  which  has 
since  pursued  our  calhng  was  occasioned  by  Pope's  5 
libels  and  wicked  wit.  Everybody  read  those. 
Everybody  was  familiarised  with  the  idea  of  the 
poor  devil,  the  author.  The  manner  is  so  captivat- 
ing that  young  authors  practise  it,  and  begin  their 
career  with  satire.  It  is  so  easy  to  write,  and  so  lo 
pleasant  to  read!  to  fire  a  shot  that  makes  a  giant 
w^ince,  perhaps;  and  fancy  one's  self  his  conqueror. 
It  is  easy  to  shoot — but  not  as.  Pope  did.  The 
shafts  of  his  satire  rise  sublimely:  no  poet's  verse 
ever  mounted  higher  than  that  wonderful  flight  15 
with  which  the  "  Dunciad  "  concludes: — * 


"  She  comes,  she  comes  !    the  sable  throne  behold 
Of  Night  primeval  and  of  Chaos  old; 
Before  her,  Fancy's  gilded  clouds  decay, 
And  all  its  varying  rainbows  die  away;  ^.o 

Wit  shoots  in  vain  its  momentary  fires, 
The  meteor  drops,  and  in  a  flash  expires. 
As,  one  by  one,  at  dread  Medea's  strain 
The  sick'ning  stars  fade  ofT  the  ethereal  plain; 
As  Argus'  eyes,  by  Hermes'  wand  oppress'd,  25 

Closed,  one  by  one,  to  everlasting  rest; — 
Thus,  at  her  fell  approach  and  secret  might, 
Art  after  Art  goes  out,  and  all  is  night. 
See  skulking  Truth  to  her  old  cavern  fled. 
Mountains  of  casuistry  heaped  o'er  her  head;  30 

Philosophy,  that  leaned  on  Heaven  before. 
Shrinks  to  her  second  cause  and  is  no  more. 
Religion,  blushing,  veils  her  sacred  fires, 
And,  unawares.  Morality  expires. 

•  "  He  (Johnson)  repeats  to  us,  in  his  forcible  melodious  manner  35 
the  concluding  lines  of  the  '  Dunciad.'  " — Boswcll. 


PRIOR,   GA  V,  AND    POPE  201 

Nor  public  flame,  nor  private,  dares  to  shine. 
Nor  human  spark  is  left,  nor  glimpse  divine. 
Lo  !    thy  dread  empire,  Chaos,  is  restored. 
Light  dies  before  thy  uncreating  word; 
5  Thy  hand,  great  Anarch,  lets  the  curtain  fall. 

And  universal  darkness  buries  all."  * 

In  these  astonishing  lines  Pope  reaches,  I  think, 
to  the  very  greatest  height  which  his  sublime  art 
has  attained,  and  shows  himself  the  eqtial  of  all 

lo  poets  of  all  times.  It  is  the  brightest  ardour,  the 
loftiest  assertion  of  truth,  the  most  generous  wis- 
dom illustrated  by  the  noblest  poetic  figure,  and 
spoken  in  words  the  aptest,  grandest,  and  most 
harmonious.      It    is    heroic    courage    speaking:     a 

15  splendid  declaration  of  righteous  wrath  and  war. 
It  is  the  gage  flung  down,  and  the  silver  trumpet 
ringing  defiance  to  falsehood  and  tyranny,  deceit, 
dulness,  superstition.  It  is  Truth,  the  champion, 
shining  and  intrepid,  and  fronting  the  great  world- 

20  tyrant  with  armies  of  slaves  at  his  back.  It  is  a 
wonderful  and  victorious  single  combat,  in  that 
great  battle  which  has  always  been  waging  since 
society  began. 

In  speaking  of  a  work  of^  consummate  art  one 

25  does  not  try  to  show  what  it  actually  is,  for  that 
were  vain;  but  what  it  is  like,  and  what  are  the 
sensations  produced  in  the  mind  of  him  who  views 
it.  And  in  considering  Pope's  admirable  career, 
I  am  forced  into  similitudes  drawn  from  other  cour- 

30  *  "  Mr.  Langton  informed  me  that  he  once  related  to  Johnson 
(on  the  authority  of  Spence),  that  Pope  himself  admired  these  lines 
so  much  that  when  lie  repeated  them  his  voice  faltered.  '  And 
well  it  might,  sir,'  said  Johnson,  '  for  they  are  noble  lines.'  "— 
/.  Boswcll,  junior. 


202  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

age  and  greatness,  and  into  comparing  him  with 
those  who  achieved  triumphs  in  actual  war.  I 
think  of  the  works  of  young  Pope  as  I  do  of  the 
actions  of  young  Bonaparte  or  young  Nelson.  In 
their  common  life  you  will  find  frailties  and  mean-  5 
nesses,  as  great  as  the  vices  and  follies  of  the 
meanest  men.  But  in  the  presence  of  the  great  oc- 
casion, the  great  soul  flashes  out,  and  conquers 
transcendent.  In  thinking  of  the  splendour  of 
i^ope's  young  victories,  of  his  merit,  unequalled  as  lo 
his  renown,  I  hail  and  salute  the  achieving  genius, 
and  do  homage  to  the  pen  of  a  hero. 


Ibocjartb,  Smollett,  anb  jfielMuG 

I  suppose,  as  long  as  novels  last  and  authors 
aim  at  interesting  their  public,  there  must  always 
be  in  the  story  a  virtuous  and  gallant  hero,  a  wicked 

5  monster  his  opposite,  and  a  pretty  girl  who  finds  a 
champion ;  bravery  and  virtue  conquer  beauty ;  and 
vice,  after  seeming  to  triumph  through  a  certain 
number  of  pages,  is  sure  to  be  discomfited  in  the 
last  volurrie,  wh'en  justice  overtakes  him  and  honest 

lo  folk  come  by  their  own.  There  never  was  perhaps 
a  greatly  popular  story  but  this  simple  plot  was 
carried  through  it:  mere  satiric  wit  is  addressed 
to  a  class  of  readers  and  thinkers  quite  different  to 
those  simple  souls  who  laugh  and  weep  over  the 

15  novel.  I  fancy  very  few  ladies,  indeed,  for  instance, 
could  be  brought  to  like. "  Gulliver  "  heartily,  and 
(putting  the  coarseness  and  difference  of  manners 
out  of  the  question)  to  relish  the  wonderful  satire 
of  "  Jonathan  Wild."     In  that  strange  apologue, 

20  the  author  takes  for  a  hero  the  greatest  rascal, 
coward,  traitor,  tyrant,  hypocrite,  that  his  wit  and 
experience,  both  large  in  this  matter,  could  enable 
him  to  devise  or  depict;  he  accompanies  this  vil- 
lain through  all  the  actions  of  his  life,  with  a  grin- 

25  ning  deference  and  a  wonderful  mock  respect;  and 
doesn't  leave  him  till  he  is  dangling  at  the  gallows, 

203 


204  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

when  the  satirist  makes  him  a  low  bow  and  wishes 
the  scoundrel  good-day. 

It  was  not  by  satire  of  this  sort,  or  by  scorn  and 
contempt,  that  Hogarth  achieved  his  vast  popu- 
larity  and   acquired   his   reputation.*      His   art   is    5 
quite  simple;  f  he  speaks  popular  parables  to  in- 

*  Coleridge  speaks  of  the  "  beautiiul  female  faces  "  in  Hogarth's 
pictures,  "  in  whom,"  he  says,  "  the  satirist  never  extinguished  that 
love  of  beauty  which  belonged  to  him  as  a  poet." — The  Friend. 

t  "  I  was  pleased  with  the  reply  of  a  gentleman,  who,  being  asked  lO 
which  book  he  esteemed  most  in  his  library,  answered  '  Shakspeare  ': 
being  asked  which  he  esteemed  next  best,  replied  '  Hogarth.'  His 
graphic  representations  are  indeed  books:  they  have  the  teeming, 
fruitful,  suggestive  meaning  of  'zvords.  Other  pictures  we  look  at — 
his  prints  we  read.  ...  ^5 

"  The  quantity  of  thought  which  Hogarth  crowds  into  every  picture 
would  almost  unvulgarise  every  subject  which  he  might  choose.  .  .  . 

"  I    say    not    that    all    the    ridiculous    subjects    of    Hogarth    have 
necessarily  something  in  them  to  make  us  like  them;     some  are  in- 
different to  us,  some  in  their  nature  repulsive,  and  only  made  inter- 20 
esting   by   the   wonderful    skill    and   truth   to    nature   in    the   painter; 
but   I   contend  that  there  is  in  most  of  them  that  sprinkling  of  the 
better  nature,  which,  like  holy  water,  chases  away  and  disperses  the 
contagion   of   the   bad.     They   have  this  in   them,   besides,   that   they 
bring   us  acquainted   with   the   every-day   human   face,— they   give   us  25 
skill   to   detect   those   gradations   of   sense   and   virtue    (which   escape 
the  careless  or  fastidious  observer)  in  the  circumstances  of  the  world 
about    us;     and    prevent    that    disgust    at    common    life,    that    tcrdiiim 
quotidianarum  formarum,  which  an  unrestricted  passion  for  ideal  forms 
and  beauties  is  in   danger  of  producing.     In  this,  as  in  many  other  .'^O 
things,  they  are  analogous  to  the  best  novels  of  Smollett  and  Field- 
ing."— Charles  Lamb. 

"  It   has   been    observed    that    Hogarth's    pictures    are   exceedingly 
unlike  any  other  representations  of  the  same  kind  of  subjects — that 
they  form  a  class,  and  have  a  character  peculiar  to  themselves.     It  35 
may    be    worth    while    to    consider    in    what    this    general    distinction 
consists. 

"  In  the  first  place,  they  are,  in  the  strictest  sense,  historical 
pictures;  and  if  what  Fielding  says  be  true,  that  his  novel  of  Tom 
Jones  ought  to  be  regarded  as  an  epic  prose-poem,  because  it  con- 40 
tained  a  regular  development  of  fable,  manners,  character,  and 
passion,  the  compositions  of  Hogarth  will,  in  like  manner,  be  found 
to  have  a  higher  claim  to  the  title  of  epic  pictures  than  many  which 
have  of  late  arrogated  that  denomination  to  themselves.  When 
we  say  that  Hogarth  treated  his  subjects  historically,  we  mean  that 45 
his  works  represent  the  manners  and  humours  of  mankind  in  action, 


HOGARTH,   SMOLLETT,  AND    FIELDING    20$ 

terest  simple  hearts,  and  to  inspire  them  with  pleas- 
ure or  pity  or  warning  and  terror.  Not  one  of  his 
tales  but  is  as  easy  as  "  Goody  Two-Shoes  "  ;  it 
is  the  moral  of  Tommy  was  a  naughty  boy  and  the 
5  master  flogged  him,  and  Jacky  was  a  good  boy 
and  had  plum-cake,  which  pervades  the  whole 
works  of  the  homely  and  famous  English  moralist. 
And  if  the  moral  is  written  in  rather  too  large  let- 
ters after  the  fable,  we  must  remember  how  simple 

lo  the  scholars  and  schoolmaster  both  were,  and  like 
neither  the  less  because  they  are  so  artless  and 
honest.  '*  It  was  a  maxim  of  Doctor  Harrison's," 
Fielding  says,  in  *'  Amelia," — speaking  of  the  be- 
nevolent divine  and  philosopher  who  represents. the 

15  good  principle  in  that  novel — "  that  no  man  can 
descend  below  himself,  in  doing  any  act  which  may 
contribute  to  protect  an  innocent  person,  or  to  bring 
a  rogue  to  the  gallozus.'^  The  moralists  of  that  age 
had  no  compunction,  you  see;   they  had  not  begun 

20  to  be  sceptical  about  the  theory  of  punishment,  and 
thought  that  the  hanging  of  a  thief  was  a  spectacle 

and  their  characters  by  varied  expression.  Everything  in  his  pictures 
has  life  and  motion  in  it.  Not  only  does  the  business  of  the  scene 
never  stand  still,  but  every  feature  and  muscle  is  put  into  full  play; 

25  the  exact  feeling  of  the  moment  is  brought  out,  and  carried  to  its 
utmost  height,  and  then  instantly  seized  and  stamped  on  the  canvas 
for  ever.  The  expression  is  always  taken  en  passant,  in  a  state  of 
progress  or  change,  and,  as  it  were,  at  the  salient  point.  .  .  .  His 
figures    are    not    like    the    background    on    which    they    are    painted: 

30  even  the  pictures  on  the  wall  have  a  peculiar  look  of  their  own. 
Again,  with  the  rapidity,  variety,  and  scope  of  history,  Hogarth's 
heads  have  all  the  reality  and  correctness  of  portraits.  He  gives  the 
extremes  of  character  and  expression,  but  he  gives  them  with  perfect 
truth   and    accuracy.     This   is,    in    fact,    what   distinguishes   his   com- 

35  positions  from  all  others  of  the  same  kind,  that  they  are  equally 
remote  from  caricature,  and  from  mere  still  life.  .  .  .  His  faces  go  to 
the  very  verge  of  caricature,  and  yet  never  (we  believe  in  any  single 
instance)  go  beyond  it." — Haslitt. 


2o6  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

for  edification.  Masters  sent  their  apprentices, 
fathers  took  their  children,  to  see  Jack  Sheppard 
or  Jonathan  Wild  hanged,  and  it  was  as  undoubt- 
ing  subscribers  to  this  moral  law,  that  Fielding 
wrote  and  Hogarth  painted.  Except  in  one  in-  5 
stance,  where,  in  the  madhouse  scene  in  the 
"  Rake's  Progress,"  the  girl  whom  he  has  ruined 
is  represented  as  still  tending  and  weeping  over  him 
in  his  insanity,  a  glimpse  of  pity  for  his  rogues 
never  seems  to  enter  honest  Hogarth's  mind.  lo 
There's  not  the  slightest  doubt  in  the  breast  of  the 
jolly  Draco. 

The  famous  set  of  pictures  called  "  Marriage  a 
la  Mode,"  and  which  are  now  exhibited  in  the  Na- 
tional  Gallery  in  London,  contains  the  most  im-  15 
portant  and  highly  wrought  of  the  Hogarth  come- 
dies.    The  care  and  method  with  which  the  moral 
grounds  of  these  pictures  are  laid  is  as  remarkable 
as  the  wit  and  skill  of  the  observing  and  dexterous 
artist.     He  has  to  describe  the  negotiations  for  a  20 
marriage  pending  between  the  daughter  of  a  rich 
citizen  Alderman  and  young  Lord  Viscount  Squan- 
derfield,  the  dissipated  son  of  a  gouty    old    Earl. 
Pride  and  pomposity  appear  in  every  accessory  sur- 
rounding the  Earl.     He  sits  in  gold  lace  and  velvet  25 
— as  how  should  such  an  Earl  wear  anything  but 
velvet  and  gold  lace?    His  coronet  is  everywhere: 
on  his  footstool,  on  which  reposes  one  gouty  toe 
turned  out;    on  the  sconces  and  looking-glasses; 
on  the  dogs;  *   on  his  lordship's  very  crutches;   on  30 
his  great  chair  of  state  and  the  great  baldaquin  be- 

*[There  is  no  coronet  on  the  dogs  in  the  picture.     A  coronet  was 
conferred  upon  one  dog  in  the  engraving.] 


HOGARTH,  SMOLLETT,  AND   FIELDING   20/ 

hind  him;  under  which  he  sits  pointing  majestically 
to  his  pedigree,  which  shows  that  his  race  is 
sprung  from  the  loins  of  William  the  Conqueror, 
and  confronting  the  old  Alderman  from  the  City, 
5  who  has  mounted  his  sword  for  the  occasion,  and 
wears  his  Alderman's  chain,  and  has  brought  a  bag 
full  of  money,  mortgage-deeds  and  thousand-pound 
notes,  for  the  arrangement  of  the  transaction  pend- 
ing between  them.    Whilst  the  steward  *  (a  Metho- 

lo  dist — therefore  a  hypocrite  and  cheat:  for  Hogarth 
scorned  a  Papist  and  a  Dissenter)  is  negotiating 
between  the  old  couple,  their  children  sit  together, 
united  but  apart.  My  lord  is  admiring  his  counte- 
nance in  the  glass,  while  his  bride  is  twiddling  her 

15  marriage  ring  on  her  pocket-handkerchief,  and  lis- 
tening with  rueful  countenance  to  Counsellor  Sil- 
vertongue,  who  has  been  drawing  the  settlements. 
The  girl  is  pretty,  but  the  painter,  with  a  curious 
watchfulness,  has  taken  care  to  give  her  a  likeness 

20  to  her  father;  as  in  the  young  Viscount's  face  you 
see  a  resemblance  to  the  Earl,  his  noble  sire.  The 
sense  of  the  coronet  pervades  the  picture,  as  it  is 
supposed  to  do  the  mind  of  its  wearer.  The 
pictures  round  the  room  are  sly  hints  indicating 

25  the  situation  of  the  parties  about  to  marry.  A 
martyr  is  led  to  the  fire;  Andromeda  f  is  offered 
to  sacrifice;  Judith  is  going  to  slay  Holofernes. 
There  is  the  ancestor  of  the  house  (in  the  picture 


*  [This  person  is  the  Alderman's  clerk  or  cashier.  The  Methodist 
30  steward  (a  different  person)  appears  in  the  next  picture — the  break- 
fast scene.] 

t  [This  is  a  mistake.  The  only  person  likely  to  be  intended  is  St. 
Sebastian.     Any  reference  to  the  incidents  is  very  doubtful.] 


208  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

it  is  the  Earl  himself  as  a  young  man),  with  a  comet 
over  his  head,  indicating  that  the  career  of  the 
family  is  to  be  brilliant  and  brief.  In  the  second 
picture  *  the  old  lord  must  be  dead,  for  Madam  has 
now  the  Countess's  coronet  over  her  bed  and  toilet-  5 
glass,  and  sits  listening  to  that  dangerous  Counsel- 
lor Silvertongue,  whose  portrait  now  actually  hangs 
up  in  her  room,  whilst  the  counsellor  takes  his  ease 
on  the  sofa  by  her  side,  evidently  the  familiar  of 
the  house,  and  the  confidant  of  the  mistress.  My  ^o 
Lord  takes  his  pleasure  elsewhere  than  at  home, 
whither  he  returns  jaded  and  tipsy  from  the 
"  Rose,"  to  find  his  wife  yawning  in  her  drawing- 
room,  her  whist-party  over,  and  the  daylight 
streaming  in;  or  he  amuses  himself  with  the  very  15 
worst  company  abroad,  whilst  his  wife  sits  at  home 
listening  to  foreign  singers,  or  wastes  her  money 
at  auctions,  or,  worse  still,  seeks  amusement  at 
masquerades.  The  dismal  end  is  known.  My  Lord 
draws  upon  the  counsellor,  who  kills  him,  and  is  20 
apprehended  whilst  endeavouring  to  escape.  My 
lady  goes  back  perforce  to  the  Alderman  in  the 
City,  and  faints  f  upon  reading  Counsellor  Silver- 
tongue's  dying  speech  at  Tyburn,  where  the  coun- 
sellor has  been  executed  for  sending  his  Lordship  25 
out  of  the  world.  Moral: — Don't  listen  to  evil 
silver-tongued  counsellors:  don't  marry  a  man  for 
his  rank,  or  a  woman  for  her  money:  don't  fre- 
quent foolish  auctions  and  masquerade  balls  un- 
known to  your  husband :  don't  have  wicked  com-  30 
panions  abroad  and  neglect  your  wife,  otherwise 

*  [Really  the  fourth.] 

t  [She  has  taken  laudanum  and  is  dead.] 


HOGARTH,   SMOLLETT,  AND    FIELDING   20() 

you  will  be  run  through  the  body,  and  ruin  will 
ensue,  and  disgrace,  and  Tyburn.  The  people  are 
all  naughty,  and  Bogey  carries  them  all  off.  In  the 
"  Rake's  Progress,"  a  loose  life  is  ended  by  a  simi- 
5  lar  sad  catastrophe.  It  is  the  spendthrift  coming 
into  possession  of  the  wealth  of  the  paternal  miser; 
the  prodigal  surrounded  by  flatterers,  and  wasting 
his  substance  on  the  very  worst  company;  the 
bailiffs,   tire  gambling-house,   and   Bedlam   for  an 

lo  end.  In  the  famous  story  of  "  Industry  and  Idle- 
ness," the  moral  is  pointed  in  a  manner  similarly 
clear.  Fair-haired  Frank  Goodchild  smiles  at  his 
work,  whilst  naughty  Tom  Idle  snores  over  his 
loom.     Frank  reads  the  edifying  ballads  of  "  Whit- 

15  tington  "  and  the  "  London  'Prentice,"  whilst  that 
reprobate  Tom  Idle  prefers  "  Moll  Flanders,"  and 
drinks  hugely  of  beer.  Frank  goes  to  church  of  a 
Sunday,  and  warbles  hymns  from  the  gallery ;  while 
Tom  lies  on  a  tombstone  outside  playing  at  "  half- 

2openny-under-the-hat  "  with  street  blackguards,  and 
is  deservedly  caned  by  the  beadle.  Frank  is  made 
overseer  of  the  business,  whilst  Tom  is  sent  to  sea. 
Frank  is  taken  into  partnership  and  marries  his 
master's  daughter,  sends  out  broken  victuals  to  the 

25  poor,  and  listens  in  his  nightcap  and  gown,  with  the 
lovely  Mrs.  Goodchild  by  his  side,  to  the  nuptial 
music  of  the  City  bands  and  the  marrow-bones  and 
.  cleavers;  whilst  idle  Tom,  returned  from  sea,  shud- 
ders in  a  garret  lest  the  officers  are  coming  to  take 

30  him  for  picking  pockets.  The  Worshipful  Francis 
Goodchild.  Esquire,  becomes  Sheriff  of  London, 
and  partakes  of  the  most  splendid  dinners  which 


210  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

money  can  purchase  or  Alderman  devour;  whilst 
poor  Tom  is  taken  up  in  a  night-cellar,  with  that 
one-eyed  and  disreputable  accomplice  who  first 
taught  him  to  play  chuck-farthing  on  a  Sunday. 
What  happens  next?  Tom  is  brought  up  before  5 
the  justice  of  his  country,  in  the  person  of  Mr.  Al- 
derman Goodchild,  who  weeps  as  he  recognises  his 
old  brother  'prentice,  as  Tom's  one-eyed  friend 
peaches  on  him,  and  the  clerk  makes  out  the  poor 
rogue's  ticket  for  Newgate.  Then  the  end  comes.  lo 
Tom  goes  to  Tyburn  in  a  cart  with  a  coffin  in  it; 
whilst  the  Right  Honourable  Francis  Goodchild, 
Lord  Mayor  of  London,  proceeds  to  his  Mansion 
House,  in  his  gilt  coach  with  four  footmen  and  a 
sword-bearer,  whilst  the  Companies  of  London  15 
march  in  the  august  procession,  whilst  the  train- 
bands of  the  City  fire  their  pieces  and  get  drunk 
in  his  honour;  and — O  crowning  delight  and  glory 
of  all — whilst  his  Majesty  the  King  *  looks  out 
from  his  royal  balcony,  with  his  riband  on  his  20 
breast,  and  his  Queen  and  his  star  by  his  side,  at 
the  corner  house  of  Saint  Paul's  Churchyard. 

How  the  times  have  changed!     The  new  Post 
Ofifice    now    not    disadvantageously  occupies  that 
spot  where  the  scaff^olding  is  in  the  picture,  where  25 
the   tipsy   trainband-man    is   lurching   against   the 
post,  with  his  wig  over  one  eye,  and  the  'prentice- 
boy  is  trying  to  kiss  the  pretty  girl  in  the  gallery.. 
Passed  away  'prentice-boy  and  pretty  girl!    Passed 
away  tipsy  trainband-man  with  wig  and  bandolier!  30 
On  the  spot  where  Tom  Idle  (for  whom  I  have  an 

*  [Really  Frederick,  Prince  of  Wales,  with  the  Princess  of  Wales.] 


HOGARTH,   SMOLLETT,  AND    FIELDING   211 

unaffected  pity)  made  his  exit  from  this  wicked 
world,  and  where  you  see  the  hangman  smoking 
his  pipe  as  he  rechnes  on  the  gibbet  and  views  the 
hills  of  Harrow  or  Hampstead  beyond,  a  splendid 

5  marble  arch,  a  vast  and  modern  city — clean,  airy, 
painted  drab,  populous  with  nursery-maids  and 
children,  the  abode  of  wealth  and  comfort — the 
elegant,  the  prosperous,  the  polite  Tyburnia  rises, 
the  most  respectable  district  in  the  habitable  globe. 

lo  In  that  last  plate  of  the  London  Apprentices,  in 
which  the  apotheosis  of  the  Right  Honourable 
Francis  Goodchild  is  drawn,  a  ragged  fellow  is  rep- 
resented in  the  corner  of  the  simple,  kindly  piece, 
offering  for  sale  a  broadside,  purporting  to  contain 

15  an  account  of  the  appearance  of  the  ghost  of  Tom 
Idle  executed  at  Tyburn.  Could  Tom's  ghost  have 
made  its  appearance  in  1847,  and  not  in  1747,  what 
changes  would  have  been  remarked  by  that  aston- 
ished   escaped    criminal!      Over    that    road    which 

20  the  hangman  used  to  travel  constantly,  and  the  Ox- 
ford stage  twice  a  week,  go  ten  thousand  carriages 
every  day:  over  yonder  road,  by  which  Dick  Tur- 
pin  fled  to  Windsor,  r.nd  Squire  Western  jour- 
neyed into  town,  when  he  came   to   take   up  his 

25  quarters  at  the  "  Hercules  Pillars  "  on  the  outskirts 
of  London,  what  a  rush  of  civilisation  and  order 
flows  now!  What  armies  of  gentlemen  with  um- 
brellas march  to  banks,  and  chambers,  and  count- 
ing-houses!   What  regiments  of  nursery-maids  and 

30  pretty  infantry;  what  peaceful  processions  of  po- 
licemen, what  light  broughams  and  what  gay  car- 
riages, what  swarms  of  busy  apprentices  and  arti- 


212  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

f.cers,  riding  on  omnibus-roofs,  pass  daily  and 
hourly!  Tom  Idle's  times  are  quite  changed:  many 
of  the  institutions  gone  into  disuse  which  were  ad- 
mired in  his  day.  There's  more  pity  and  kindness 
and  a  better  chance  for  poor  Tom's  successors  now  5 
than  at  that  simpler  period  when  Fielding  hanged 
him  and  Hogarth  drew  him. 

To  the  student  of  history,  these  admirable  works 
must  be  invaluable,  as  they  give  us  the  most  com- 
plete and  truthful  picture  of  the  manners,  and  even  lo 
the  thoughts,  of  the  past  century.     We  look,  and 
see  pass  before  us  the  England  of  a  hundred  years 
ago — the  peer   in   his   drawing-room,   the   lady   of 
fashion  in  her  apartment,  foreign  singers  surround- 
ing her,  and  the  chamber  filled  with  gewgaws  in  ^5 
the  mode  of  that  day:    the  church,  with  its  quaint 
florid  architecture  and  singing  congregation;    the 
parson  with  his  great  wig,  and  the  beadle  with  his 
cane:    all  these  are  represented  before  us,  and  we 
are  sure  of  the  truth  of  the  portrait.     We  see  how  20 
the  Lord  Mayor  dines  in  state;    how  the  prodigal 
drinks  and  sports  at  the  bagnio;   how  the  poor  girl 
beats  hemp  in  Bridewell;    how  the  thief  divides  his 
booty  and  drinks  his  punch  at  the  night-cellar,  and 
how  he  finishes  his  career  at  the  gibbet.     We  may  23 
depend  upon  the  perfect  accuracy  of  these  strange 
and  varied  portraits  of  the  bygone  generation:    we 
see    one    of    Walpole's    Members    of    Parliament 
chaired  after  his  election,  and  the  lieges  celebrating 
the  event,  and  drinking  confusion  to  the  Pretender:  30 
we  see  the  grenadiers  and  trainbands  of  the  City 
marching  out  to  meet  the  enemv;   and  have  before 


HOGARTH,  SMOLLETT,  AND    FIELDING   213 

US,  with  sword  and  firelock,  and  "  White  Hano- 
verian Horse  "  embroidered  on  the  cap,  the  very 
figures  of  the  men  who  ran  away  with  Johnny  Cope, 
and  who  conquered  at  CuUoden.     The  Yorkshire 

5 waggon  rolls  into  the  inn  yard;  the  country  par- 
son, in  his  jack-boots,  and  his  bands  and  sjiort  cas- 
sock, comes  trotting  into  town,  and  we  fancy  it  is 
Parson  Adams,  with  his  sermon  in  his  pocket.  The 
Salisbury  fly  sets  forth  from  the  old  "  Angel  " — 

luyou  see  the  passengers  entering  the  great  heavy 
vehicle,  up  the  wooden  steps,  their  hats  tied  down 
with  handkerchiefs  over  their  faces,  and  under  their 
arms, sword, hanger,  and  case-bottle;  the  landlady — 
apoplectic  with  the  liquors  in  her  own  bar — is  tug- 

isging  at  the  bell;  the  hunchbacked  postillion — he 
may  have  ridden  the  leaders  to  Humphrey  Clinker 
—is  begging  a  gratuity ;  the  miser  is  grumbling  at 
the  bill;  Jack  of  the  "  Centurion  "  lies  on  the  top 
of  the  clumsy  vehicle,  with  a  soldier  by  his  side  * 

20 — it  may  be  Smollett's  Jack  Hatchway — it  has  a 
likeness"  to  Lismahago.  You  see  the  suburban 
fair  and  the  strolling  company  of  actors;  the  pretty 
milkmaid  singing  under  the  windows  of  the  en- 
raged French  musician:    it  is  such  a  girl  as  Steele 

25  charmingly  described  in  the  Guardian,  a  few  years 
before   this   date,t   singing,   under   Mr.    Ironside's 
window  in  Shire  Lane,  her  pleasant  carol  of  a  May 
morning.     You  see  noblemen  and  blacklegs  bawl 
ing  and  betting  in  the  Cockpit:    you  see  Garrick 

30  as  he  was  arrayed  in  "  King  Richard  "  ;   Macheath 

*  [The  commentators  say  that  the  soldier  is  a  Frenchman.] 
t  [The    Guardian    ended    in    1713.      The    "  enraged    musician  "    is 
dated  1741-] 


214  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

and  Polly  in  the  dresses  which  they  wore  when  they 
charmed  our  ancestors,  and  when  noblemen  in  blue 
ribands  sat  on  the  stage  and  listened  to  their  de- 
lightful music.  You  see  the  ragged  French  sol- 
diery, in  their  white  coats  and  cockades,  at  Calais  5 
Gate:  they  are  of  the  regiment,  very  likely,  which 
friend  Roderick  Random  joined  before  he  was  res- 
cued by  his  preserver  Monsieur  de  Strap,  with 
whom  he  fought  on  the  famous  day  of  Dettingen. 
You  see  the  judges  on  the  bench;  the  audience  lo 
laughing  in  the  pit;  the  student  in  the  Oxford  thea- 
tre; the  citizen  on  his  country  walk;  you  see 
Broughton  the  boxer,  Sarah  Malcolm  the  mur- 
deress, Simon  Lovat  the  traitor,  John  Wilkes*  the 
demagogue,  leering  at  you  with  that  squint  which  15 
has  become  historical,  and  that  face  which,  ugly  as 
it  was,  he  said  he  could  make  as  captivating  to 
woman  as  the  countenance  of  the  handsomest  beau 
in  town.  All  these  sights  and  people  are  with  you. 
After  looking  in  the  "  Rake's  Progress  "  at  Ho- 20 
garth's  picture  of  Saint  James's  Palace  Gate,  you 
may  people  the  street,  but  little  altered  within  these 
hundred  years,  with  the  gilded  carriages  and 
thronging  chairmen  that  bore  the  courtiers  your 
ancestors  to  Queen  Caroline's  drawing-room  more  25 
than  a  hundred  years  ago. 

What  manner  of  man  *   was   he   who   executed 

*  Hogarth  (whose  family  name  was  Hogart)  was  the  grandson  of 
a  Westmoreland  yeoman.  His  father  came  to  London,  and  was 
an  author  and  schoolmaster.  William  was  born  loth  November  1697,  3^ 
in  the  parish  of  Saint  Martin,  Ludgate.  He  was  early  apprenticed 
to  an  engraver  of  arms  on  plate.  The  following  touches  arc  from 
his  Anecdotes  of  Himself  (Edition  of  1833): — 

"  As    I    had    naturally    a    good    eye,    and    a    fondness    for    drawing, 
shows  of  all  sorts  gave  me  uncommon  pleasure  when  an  infant;    and  35 


HOGARTH,   SMOLLETT,  AND   FIELDING   21$ 

these  portraits — so  various,  so  faithful,  and  so  ad- 
mirable? In  the  National  Collection  of  Pictures 
most  of  us  have  seen  the  best  and  most  carefully 

mimicry,  common  to  all  children,  was  remarkable  in  me.  An  early 
5  access  to  a  neighbouring  painter  drew  my  attention  from  play;  and 
I  was,  at  every  possible  opportunity,  employed  in  making  drawings. 
I  picked  up  an  acquaintance  of  the  same  turn,  and  soon  learnt  to 
draw  the  alphabet  with  great  correctness.  My  exercises,  when  at 
school,  were  more  remarkable  for  the  ornaments  which  adorned  them, 

lOthan  for  the  exercise  itself.  In  the  former,  I  soon  found  that  block- 
heads with  better  memories  could  much  surpass  me;  but  for  the 
latter  I  was  particularly  distinguished.  .  .  . 

"  I  thought  it  still  more  unlikely  that  by  pursuing  the  common 
method,   and   copying   old   drawings,    I    could   ever   attain   the   power 

15  of  making  new  designs,  which  was  my  first  and  greatest  ambition. 
I  therefore  endeavoured  to  habituate  myself  to  the  exercise  of  a  sort 
of  technical  memory;  and  by  repeating  in  my  own  mind  the  parts 
of  which  objects  were  composed,  I  could  by  degrees  combine  and 
put  them  down  with  my  pencil.     Thus,  with  all  the  drawbacks  which 

20  resulted  from  the  circumstances  I  have  mentioned,  I  had  one 
material  advantage  over  my  competitors,  viz.,  the  early  habit  I  thus 
acquired  of  retaining  in  my  mind's  eye,  without  coldly  copying  it  on 
the  spot,  whatever  I  intended  to  imitate. 

"  The  instant  I  became  master  of  my  own  time,   I   determined  to 

25  qualify  myself  for  engraving  on  copper.  In  this  I  readily  got  em- 
ployment; and  frontispieces  to  books,  such  as  prints  to  Hudibras, 
in  twelves,  &c.,  soon  brought  me  into  the  way.  Eut  the  tribe  of 
booksellers  remained  as  my  father  had  left  them  .  .  .  which  put  me 
upon  publishing  on  my  own  account.     But  here  again  I  had  to  en- 

30  counter  a  monopoly  of  printsellers,  equally  mean  and  destructive 
to  the  ingenious;  for  the  first  plate  I  published,  called  'The  Taste 
of  the  Town,'  in  which  the  reigning  follies  were  lashed,  had  no 
sooner  begun  to  take  a  run,  than  I  found  copies  of  it  in  the  print- 
shops,  vending  at  half-price,  while  the  original  prints  were  returned 

35  to  me  again,  and  I  was  thus  obliged  to  sell  the  plate  for  whatever 
these  pirates  pleased  to  give  me,  as  there  was  no  place  of  sale  but 
at  their  shops.  Owing  to  this,  and  other  circumstances,  by  engrav- 
ing, until  I  was  near  thirty,  I  could  do  little  more  than  maintain 
myself;    but  even  then  I  was  a  ftunclual  paymaster. 

40     "  I  then  married,  and " 

[But  William  is  going  too  fast  here.  He  made  a  "  stolen  union," 
on  March  23,  1729,  with  Jane,  daughter  of  Sir  James  Thornhill, 
serjeant-painter.  For  some  time  Sir  James  kept  his  heart  and  his 
purse-strings    close,    but    "  soon    after    became    both    reconciled    and 

45  generous  to  the  young  couple."— Hogarlh''s   Works,  by   Nichols  and 
Steevens,  vol.  i.  p.  44.] 
"  — commenced  painter  of  small  Conversation  Pieces,  from  twelve 


2l6  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

finished  series  of  his  comic  paintings,  and  the  por- 
trait of  his  own  honest  face,  of  which  the  bright 
blue  eyes  shine  out  from  the  canvas  and  give  you 

to  fifteen  inches  high.  This,  being  a  novelty,  succeeded  for  a  few 
years." 

[About  this  time  Hogarth  had  summer  lodgings  at  South  Lam-  ^ 
beth,  and  did  all  kinds  of  work,  "  embellishing  "  the  "  Spring 
Gardens  "  at  "  Vauxhall,"  and  the  like.  In  1731  he  published  a 
satirical  plate  against  Pope,  founded  on  the  well-known  impvitation 
against  him  of  his  having  satirised  the  Duke  of  Chandos,  under  the  jq 
name  of  Timon,  in  his  poem  on  '"  Taste."  The  plate  represented 
a  view  of  Burlington  House,  with  Pope  whitewashing  it,  and  be- 
spattering the  Duke  of  Oiandos's  coach.  Pope  made  no  retort, 
and  has  never  mentioned  Hogarth.] 

"  Before  I  had  done  anything  of  much  consequence  in  this  walk,  I  je 
entertained   some  hopes  of   succeeding  in  what  the  puffers  in  books  call 
The  Great  Style  of  History  Painting;  so  that  without  having  had  a  stroke 
of  this  grand  business  before,   I   quitted  small   portraits  and  familiar 
conversations,    and    with   a    smile    at    my   own    temerity,    commenced 
history-painter,     and     on     a     great     staircase    at     St.     Bartholomew's  20 
Hospital,  painted  two  Scripture  stories,  the  'Pool  of  Bethesda  "  and 
the    '  Good    Samaritan,'    with    figures    seven    feet    high.  .  .  .  But    as 
religion,    the    great    promoter   of   this    style    in    other    countries,   re- 
jected it  in   England,   I   was  unwilling  to   sink   into  a  portrait  manu- 
facturer;   and,   still   ambitious  of  being  singular,   dropped   all   expec-  25 
tations  of  advantage  from  that   source,   and  returned   to   the  pursuit 
of  my  former  dealings  with  the  public  at  large. 

"  As  to  portrait-painting,  the  chief  branch  of  the  art  by  which  a 
painter  can  procure  himself  a  tolerable  livelihood,  and  the  only  one 
by  which  a  lover  of  money  can  get  a  fortune,  a  man  of  very  30 
moderate  talents  may  have  great  success  in  it,  as  the  artifice  and 
address  of  a  mercer  is  infinitely  more  useful  than  the  abilities  of  a 
painter.  By  the  manner  in  which  the  present  race  of  professors  in 
England  conduct  it,  that  also  becomes  still  life." 

"  By  this   inundation   of  folly   and   puff  "    (lie   has  been  sj^caking  of  35 
the  success  of   Vanloo,  rvho  came  over  here  in   1737),   "  I   must,  confess 
I    was   much   disgusted,   and    determined   to   try   if  by   any   means   I 
could   stem   the  torrent,   and,   by  opposing,  end   it.     I   laughed   at  the 
pretensions  of  these  quacks  in  colouring,  ridiculed  their  productions 
as  feeble  and  contemptible,  and  asserted  that  it  required  neither  taste  40 
nor  talents  to  excel  their  most  popular  performances.    This  interference 
excited  much  enmity,  because,  as  my  opponents  told  me,  my  studies 
were  in  another  way.     '  You  talk,'  added  they,  '  with  inefifable  con- 
tempt of  portrait-painting;    if  it  is  so  easy  a  task,  why  do  not  you 
convince    the    world    by    painting    a    portrait    yourself  ?  '      Provoked  45 
at  this  language,   I,  one  day  at  tlie  Academy  in   St.   Martin's   Lane, 
put  the  following  question:    '  Supposing  any  man,  at  this  time,  were 


HOGARTH,  SMOLLETT,  AND    FIELDING    2\J 

an  idea  of  that  keen  and  brave  look  with  which 
WilHam  Hogarth  regarded  the  world.  No  man 
was  ever  less  of  a  hero;    you  see  him  before  you, 

to  paint  a  portrait  as  well  as  Vandyke,  would  it  be  seen  or  acknowl- 
5  edged,  and  could  the  artist  enjoy  the  benefit  or  acquire  the  reputation 
due  to  his  performance  ?  ' 

■'They  asked   me  in   reply,   if  I   could   paint   one   as   well;     and   I 
frankly  answered,  I  believed  I  could.  .  .  . 

"  Of   the    mighty    talents    said    to    be   requisite    for    portrait    paint- 
lO  ing  I  had  not  the  most  exalted  opinion." 

Let  us  now  hear  him  on  the  question  of  the  Academy:— 
"  To  pester  the  three  great  estates  of  the  empire,  about  twenty 
or  thirty  students  drawing  after  a  man  or  a  horse,  appears,  as  must 
be  acknowledged,  foolish  enough:  but  the  real  motive  is,  that  a  few 
15  bustling  characters,  who  have  access  to  people  of  rank,  think  they 
can  thus  get  a  superiority  over  their  brethren,  be  appointed  to  places, 
and  have  salaries,  as  in  France,  for  telling  a  lad  when  a  leg  or  an 
arm  is  too  long  or  too  short.  .  .  . 

"  France,  ever  aping  the  magnificence  of  other  nations,  has  in   its 
20  turn   assumed   a  foppish   kind   of   splendour    sufficient   to   dazzle   the 
eyes  of  the  neighbouring  states,  and  draw  vast  sums  of  money  from 
this  country.  .  .  . 

"To  return  to  our  Royal  Academy:    I  am   told  that  one  of  their 
leading   objects   will    be,    sending    young   men    abroad    to    study   the 
25  antique   statues,    for   such   kind   of   studies    may    sometimes   improve 
an  exalted  genius,  but  they  will  not  create  it;    and  whatever  has  been 
the    cause,    this    same   travelling    to    Italy    has,    in    several    instances 
that  I   have  seen,  seduced  the  student  from  nature  and  led   him  to 
paint  marble  figures,  in   which  he  has  availed   himself  of  the   great 
31 )  works  of  antiquity,   as  a  coward  docs  when  he  puts  on  the  armour 
of  an   Alexander;     for,   with   similar   pretensions  and   similar  vanity, 
the    painter    supposes    he    shall    be    adored    as    a    second    Raphael 
Urbino." 
We  must  now  hear  him  on  his  "  Sigismunda  ": — 
35      "  As  the  most  violent  and  virulent  abuse  thrown  on  '  Sigismunda  ' 
was  from  a  set  of  miscreants,  with  whom  I  am  proud  of  having  been 
ever  at  war — I  mean  the  expounders  of  the  mysteries  of  old  pictures — I 
have  been  sometimes  told  they  were  beneath  my  notice.    This  is  true 
of   them   individually;     but   as   they   have   access   to   people   of   rank, 
40  who  seem  as  happy  in  being  cheated  as  these  merchants  are  in  cheat- 
ing them,  they  have  a  power  of  doing  much  mischief  to  a  modern 
_  artist.     However  mean  the  vendor  of  poisons,  the  mineral  is  destruc- 
tive:— to    me    its    operation    was    troublesome    enough.       Ill    nature 
spreads  so  fast  that  now  was  the  time  for  every  little  dog  in  the 
45  profession  to  bark  !  " 

Next    comes    a    characteristic    account    of    his    controversy    with 
Wilkes  and  Churchill. 

"  The   stagnation   rendered   it   necessary   that   I    should   do    some 


2l8  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

and  can  fancy  what  he  was — a  jovial,  honest  Lon- 
don citizen,  stout  and  sturdy;  a  hearty,  plain- 
spoken  man,*  loving  his  laugh,  his  friend,  his  glass, 
his  roast  beef  of  Old  England,  and  having  a  proper 

timed  thing,  to  recover  my  lost  time,  and  stop  a  gap  in  my  income,  e 
This  drew  forth  my  print  of  '  The  Times,'  a  subject  which  tended  to 
the  restoration  of  peace  and  unanimity,  and  put  the  opposers  of 
these  humane  objects  in  a  light  which  gaVe  great  offence  to  those 
who  were  trying  to  foment  disaffection  in  the  minds  of  the  populace. 
One  of  the  most  notorious  of  them,  till  now  my  friend  and  flatterer,  lo 
attacked  me  in  the  North  Briton,  in  so  infamous  and  malign  a  style, 
that  he  himself,  when  pushed  even  by  his  best  friends,  was  driven 
to  so  poor  an  excuse  as  to  say  he  was  drunk  when  he  wrote  it.  .  .  . 

"  This  renowned  patriot's  portrait,  drawn  like  as  I  could  as  to 
features,  and  marked  with  some  indications  of  his  mind,  fully  an-  1 5 
swered  my  purpose.  The  ridiculous  was  apparent  to  every  eye  ! 
A  Brutus  !  A  saviour  of  his  country  with  such  an  aspect — was  so 
arrant  a  farce,  that  though  it  gave  rise  to  much  laughter  in  the 
lookers-on,  galled  both  him  and  his  adherents  to  the  bone.  .  .  . 

"  Churchill,  Wilkes's  toad-echo,  put  the  Nortli  Briton  attack  into  20 
verse,  in  an  Epistle  to  Hogarth;  but  as  the  abuse  was  precisely 
the  same,  except  a  little  poetical  heightening,  which  goes  for  nothing, 
it  made  no  impression.  .  .  .  However,  having  an  old  plate  by  me, 
with  some  parts  ready,  such  as  the  background  and  a  dog,  I  began 
to  consider  how  I  could  turn  so  much  work  laid  aside  to  some  25 
account,  and  so  patched  up  a  print  of  Master  Churchill  in  the 
character  of  a  Bear.  The  pleasure  and  pecuniary  advantage  which  I 
derived  from  these  two  engravings,  together  with  occasionally  riding 
on  horseback,  restored  me  to  as  much  health  as  can  be  expected  at 
my  time  of  life."  30 

*  "  It  happened  in  the  early  part  of  Hogarth's  life,  that  a  noble- 
man who  was  uncommonly  ugly  and  deformed  came  to  sit  to  him 
for  his  picture.  It  was  executed  with  a  skill  that  did  honour  to  the 
artist's  abilities;  but  the  likeness  was  rigidly  observed,  without  even 
the  necessary  attention  to  compliment  or  flattery.  The  peer,  dis-35 
gusted  at  this  counterpart  of  himself,  never  once  thought  of  paying 
for  a  reflection  that  would  only  disgust  him  with  his  deformities. 
Some  time  was  suffered  to  elapse  before  the  artist  applied  for  his 
money;  but  afterwards  many  applications  were  made  by  him  (who 
had  then  no  need  of  a  banker)  for  payment,  without  success.  The  4° 
painter,  however,  at  last  hit  upon  an  expedient.  ...  It  was  couched 
in  the  following  card: — 

"  '  Mr.    Hogarth's  dutiful  respects  to  Lord  .     Finding  that   he 

does   not   mean    to    have   the   picture    which    was   drawn    for   him,    is 
informed  again  of  Mr.  Hogarth's  necessity  for  the  money.     If,  there- 45 
fore,    his    Lordship   does    not    send   for   it,    in    three    days    it   will    be 
disposed  of,  with  the  addition  of  a  tail,  and  some  other  little  appen- 


HOGARTH,  SMOLLETT,  AND   FLELDING   219 

bourgeois  scorn  for  French  frogs,  for  mounseers, 
and  wooden  shoes  in  general,  for  foreign  fiddlers, 
foreign  singers,  and,  above  all,  for  foreign  painters, 
whom  he  held  in  the  most  amusing  contempt. 
5  It  must  have  been  great  fun  to  hear  him  rage 
against  Correggio  and  the  Caracci;  to  watch  him 
thump  the  table  and  snap  his  fingers,  and  say, 
"Historical  painters  be  hanged!  here's  the  man 
that  will  paint  against  any  of  them  for  a  hundred 

10  pounds.  Correggio's  '  Sigismunda  '  !  Look  at 
Bill  Hogarth's  '  Sigismunda  '  ;  look  at  my  altar- 
piece  at  Saint  Mary  Redclifife,  Bristol;  look  at  my 
'  Paul  before  Felix,'  and  see  whether  Fm  not  as 
good  as  the  best  of  them."  * 

15  Posterity  has  not  quite  confirmed  honest  Ho- 
garth's opinion  about  his  talents  for  the  sublime. 

dages,  to  Mr.  Hare,  the  famous  wild-beast  man:  Mr.  Hogarth  hav- 
ing given  that  gentleman  a  conditional  promise  of  it,  for  an  exhibi- 
tion-picture, on  his  Lordship's  refusal.' 

20  "  This  intimation  had  the  desired  effect." — Works,  by  Nichols 
and  Steevens,  vol.  i.  p.  25. 

*  "  Garrick  himself  was  not  more  ductile  to  flattery.  A  word  in 
favour  of  '  Sigismunda  '  might  have  commanded  a  proof-print  or 
forced  an  original  print  out  of  our  artist's  hands.  .  .  . 

25  "  The  following  authenticated  story  of  our  artist  (furnished  by  the 
late  Mr.  Belchier,  F.R.S.,  a  surgeon  of  eminence)  will  also  serve 
to  show  how  much  more  easy  it  is  to  detect  ill-placed  or  hyperboli- 
cal adulation  respecting  others,  than  when  applied  to  ourselves. 
Hogarth,  being  at  dinner  with  the  great  Cheselden  and   some  other 

30  company,  was  told  that  Mr.  John  Freke,  surgeon  of  St.  Bartholo- 
mew's Hospital,  a  few  evenings  before  at  Dick's  Coffee-house,  had 
asserted  that  Greene  was  as  eminent  in  composition  as  Handel. 
'  That  fellow  Freke,'  replied  Hogarth,  '  is  always  shooting  his  bolt 
absurdly,  one  way  or  another.     Handel  is  a  giant  in  music;    Greene 

35  only  a  light  Florimel  kind  of  a  composer.'  '  Ay,'  says  our  artist's 
informant,  '  but  at  the  same  time  Mr.  Freke  declared  you  were  as 
good    a    portrait-painter    as    Vandyke.'     '  There   he   was   right,'    adds 

Hogarth,   '  and    so,   by   G ,    I   am,   give   me   my   time  and   let  me 

choose   my   subject.'  "—Works,   by   Nichols   and   Steevens,   vol.   i. 

40  pp.  236,  237. 


220  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

Although  Swift  could  not  see  the  difference  be- 
tween tweedle-dee  and  tweedle-dum,  posterity  has 
not  shared  the  Dean's  contempt  for  Handel;  the 
world  has  discovered  a  difference  between  tweedle- 
dee  and  tweedle-dum,  and  given  a  hearty  applause  5 
and  admiration  to  Hogarth,  too,  but  not  exactly 
as  a  painter  of  scriptural  subjects,  or  as  a  rival  of 
Correggio.  It  does  not  take  away  from  one's  lik- 
ing for  the  man,  or  from  the  moral  of  his  story,  or 
the  humour  of  it — from  one's  admiration  for  theio 
prodigious  merit  of  his  performances,  to  remember 
that  he  persisted  to  the  last  in  believing  that  the 
world  was  in  a  conspiracy  against  him  with  respect 
to  his  talents  as  an  historical  painter,  and  that  a  set 
of  miscreants,  as  he  called  them,  were  employed i5 
to  run  his  genius  down.  They  say  it  was  Listen's 
firm  belief,  that  he  was  a  great  and  neglected  tragic 
actor;  they  say  that  every  one  of  us  believes  in  his 
heart,  or  would  like  to  have  others  believe,  that  he 
is  something  which  he  is  not.  One  of  the  most  20 
notorious  of  the  "  miscreants,"  Hogarth  says,  was 
Wilkes,  who  assailed  him  in  the  North  Briton;  the 
other  was  Churchill,  who  put  the  North  Briton 
attack  into  heroic  verse,  and  published  his  "  Epistle 
to  Hogarth."  Hogarth  replied  by  that  caricature  25 
of  Wilkes,  in  which  the  patriot  still  figures  before 
us,  with  his  Satanic  grin  and  squint,  and  by  a  cari- 
cature of  Churchill,  in  which  he  is  represented  as 
a  bear  with  a  staff,  on  which  lie  the  first,  lie  the 
second — lie  the  tenth,  are  engraved  in  unmis-  30 
takable  letters.  There  is  very  little  mistake  about 
honest  Hogarth's  satire:   if  he  has  to  paiht  a  man 


HOGARTH,   SMOLLETT,  AND    FIELDING    221 

with  his  throat  cut,  lie  draws  him  with  his  head 
ahnost  off;  and  he  tried  to  do  the  same  for  his 
enemies  in  this  httle  controversy.  "  Having  an  old 
plate  by  me,"  says  he,  "  with   some  parts  ready, 

5  such  as  the  background,  and  a  dog,  I  began  to  con- 
sider how  I  could  turn  so  much  work  laid  aside 
to  some  account,  and  so  patched  up  a  print  of  Mas- 
ter Churchill,  in  the  character  of  a  bear;  the  pleas- 
ure and  pecuniary  advantage  which  I  derived  from 

lo  these  two  engravings,  together  with  occasionally 
riding  on  horseback,  restored  me  to  as  much  health 
as  I  can  expect  at  my  time  of  life." 

And  so  he  concludes  his  queer  little  book  of 
Anecdotes :    "  I    have    gone  through  the  circum- 

15  stances  of  a  life  which  till  lately  passed  pretty  much 
to  my  own  satisfaction,  and  I  hope  in  no  respect  in- 
jurious to  any  other  man.  This  I  may  safely  assert, 
that  I  have  done  my  best  to  make  those  about  me 
tolerably   happy,   and   my   greatest   enemy   cannot 

20  say  I  ever  did  an  intentional  injury.  What  may  fol- 
low, God  knows."  * 

A  queer  account  still  exists  of  a  holiday  jaunt 
taken  by  Hogarth  and  four  friends  of  his,  who  set 
out  like  the  redoubted  Mr.  Pickwick  and  his  com- 

25  panions,  but  just  a  hundred  years  before  those 
heroes;  and  made  an  excursion  to  Gravesend, 
Rochester,  Sheerness,  and  adjacent  places. f     One 

*  Of  Hogarth's  kindliness  of  disposition,  the  story  of  his  rescue  of 
the  drummer-girl   from  the  ruffian  at   Southwark   Fair  is  an  illustra- 
30tion;     and    in    this    case   virtue    was   not   its   own    reward,    since    her 
pretty  face  afterwards  served  him  for  a  model  in   many  a  picture. 

t  He    made    this    excursion    in    1732,    his    companions    being   John 
Thornhill    (son   of   Sir  James),    Scott   the   landscape-painter,   Tothall, 
and  Forrest.     [The  account  was  first  published  in  1782,  and  is  in  the 
35  third  volume  of  the  "  Genuine  Works,"  1817.] 


222  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

of  the  g-entlemcn  noted  down  the  proceedings  of  the 
journey,  for  which  Hogarth  and  a  brother  artist 
made  drawings.  The  book  is  chiefly  curious  at 
this  moment  from  showing  the  citizen  Hfe  of  those 
days,  and  the  rough  jolly  style  of  merriment,  not  5 
of  the  five  companions  merely,  but  of  thousands 
of  jolly  fellows  of  their  time.  Hogarth  and  his 
friends,  quitting  the  "  Bedford  Arms,"  Covent  Gar- 
den, with  a  song,  took  water  to  Billingsgate,  ex- 
changing compliments  with  the  bargemen  as  they  lo 
went  down  the  river.  At  Billingsgate  Hogarth 
made  a  "  caracatura  "  of  a  facetious  porter,  called 
the  Duke  of  Puddledock,  who  agreeably  enter- 
tained the  party  with  the  humours  of  the  place. 
Hence  they  took  a  Gravesend  boat  for  themselves;  15 
had  straw  to  lie  upon,  and  a  tilt  over  their  heads, 
they  say,  and  went  down  the  river  at  night,  sleep- 
ing and  singing  jolly  choruses. 

They   arrived   at   Gravesend   at   six,   when   they 
washed  their  faces  and  hands,  and  had  their  wigs  20 
powdered.     Then  they  sallied  forth  for  Rochester 
on  foot,  and  drank  by  the  way  three  pots  of  ale. 
At  one  o'clock  they  went  to  dinner  with  excellent 
port,  and  a  quantity  more  beer,  and  afterwards  Ho- 
garth and  Scott  played  at  hopscotch  in  the  town  25 
hall.    It  would  appear  that  they  slept  most  of  them 
in  one  room,  and  the  chronicler  of  the  party  de- 
scribes them  all  as  waking  at  seven  o'clock,  and 
telling  each  other  their  dreams.     You  have  rough 
sketches  by  Hogarth  of  the  incidents  of  this  holi-30 
day  excursion.     The   sturdy  little  painter  is  seen 
sprawling  over  a  plank  to  a  boat  at  Gravesend;  the 


HOGARTH,  SMOLLETT,  AND    FIELDING    223 

whole  company  are  represented  in  one  design,  in  a 
fisherman's  room,  where  they  had  all  passed  the 
night.  One  gentleman  in  a  nightcap  is  shaving 
himself;   another  is  being  shaved  by  the  fisherman; 

5  a  third,  with  a  handkerchief  over  his  bald  pate,  is 
taking  his  breakfast;  and  Hogarth  is  sketching  the 
whole  scene. 

They  describe  at  night  how  they  returned  to 
their    quarters,    drank    to    their    friends    as    usual, 

lo  emptied  several  cans  of  good  flip,  all  singing  mer- 
rily. 

It  is  a  jolly  party  of  tradesmen  engaged  at  high 
jinks.  These  were  the  manners  and  pleasures  of 
Hogarth,  of  his  time  very  likely,  of  men  not  very 

15  refined,  but  honest  and  merry.  It  is  a  brave  Lon- 
don citizen,  with  John  Bull  habits,  prejudices,  and 
pleasures.* 

*  Doctor    Johnson    made    four    lines    once,    on    the    death    of    poor 
Hogarth,   which   were   equally   true  and   pleasing;     I   know   not   why 
20Garrick's  were  preferred  to  them: — 

"  '  The  hand  of  him  here  torpid  lies, 

That  drew  th'  essential  forms  of  grace; 
Here,  closed  in  death,  th'  attentive  eyes, 
That  saw  the  manners  in  the  face.'  " 

25  [Johnson's  lines  were  only  a  suggested  emendation  upon  the  first 
form  of  the  verses,  submitted  to  him  by  Garrick  for  criticism.— 
Boswell's  Johnson  (Birkbeck  Hill),  i.   187.] 

"  Mr.    Hogarth,    among    the    variety    of   kindnesses    shown    to    me 
when   I   was   too   young   to   have   a   proper   sense  of  them,   was   used 

30  to  be  very  earnest  that  I  should  obtain  the  acquaintance,  and  if 
possible  the  friendship,  of  Doctor  Johnson;  whose  conversation 
was,  to  the  talk  of  other  men,  like  Titian's  painting  compared  to 
Hudson's,  he  said:  '  but  don't  you  tell  people  now  that  I  say  so,' 
continued   he,    '  for   the   connoisseurs   and   I    are   at   war,   you   know; 

35  and  because  I  hate  them,  they  think  I  hate  Titian — and  let  them  !  ' 
...  Of  Dr.  Johnson,  when  my  father  and  he  were  talking  about 
him  one  day,  '  That  man,'  says  Hogarth,  '  is  not  contented  with 
believing    the    Bible;     but    he    fairly   resolves,    I    think,    to    believe 


224  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

Of  Smollett's  associates  and  manner  of  life  the 
author  of  the  admirable  "  Humphrey  Clinker  "  has 
given  us  an  interesting  account  in  that  most  amus- 
ing of  novels.* 

nothing  hut  the  Bible.    Johnson,'  added  he,  '  though  so  wise  a  fellow,     5 
is   more   like    King    David   than    King    Solomon,    for   he    says   in    his 
haste,  All  men  are  liars.'  " — Mrs.  Piossi. 

Hogarth    died   on    the   26th   of   October    1764.      The    day    before   his 
death,  he  was  removed  from  his  villa  at  Chiswick  to  Leicester  Fields, 
"  in  a  very  weak  condition,   yet  remarkably  cheerful."     He  had  just  lO 
received    an    agreeable    letter    from    Franklin.      He    lies    buried    at 
Chiswick. 

*  To  Sir  JVatkin  Phillips,  Bart.,  of  Jesus  College,  Oxon. 

"  Dear   Phillips. — In  my  last,  I  mentioned  my  having  spent  an 
evening   with    a   society   of   authors,    who    seemed   to   be  jealous    and  15 
afraid  of  one  another.     My  imcle  was  not  at  all  surprised  to  hear  me 
say  I  was  disappointed  in  their  conversation.     '  A  man  may  be  very 
entertaining  and  instructive  upon  paper,'  said  he,   '  and  exceedingly 
dull   in   common   discourse.     I   have  observed,   that  those  who   shine 
most   in   private   company   are   but   secondary   stars   in   the   constella-  20 
tion  of  genius.     A  small  stock  of  ideas  is  more  easily  managed,  and 
sooner    displayed,    than    a    great    quantity   crowded    together.      There 
is  very  seldom  anything  extraordinary  in  the  appearance  and  address 
of  a  good  writer;    whereas  a  dull  author  generally  distinguishes  him- 
self by  some  oddity  or  extravagance.     For  this  reason   I  fancy  that  ^5 
an.  assembly  of  grubs  must  be  very  diverting.' 

"  My  curiosity  being  e.xcited  by  this  hint,  I  consulted  my  friend 
Dick  Ivy,  who  undertook  to  gratify  it  the  very  next  day,  which  was 
Sunday  last.  He  carried  me  to  dine  with  S — — ,  whom  you  and  I 
have  long  known  by  his  writings.  He  lives  in  the  skirts  of  the  3^ 
town;  and  every  Sunday  his  house  is  open  to  all  unfortunate 
brothers  of  the  quill,  whom  he  treats  with  beef,  pudding,  and  po- 
tatoes, port,  punch,  and  Calvert's  entire  butt  beer.  He  has  fixed 
upon  the  first  day  of  the  week  for  the  exercise  of  his  hospitality, 
because  some  of  his  guests  could  not  enjoy  it  on  any  other,  for  35 
reasons  that  I  need  not  explain.  I  was  civilly  received  in  a  plain, 
yet  decent  habitation,  which  opened  backwards  into  a  very  pleasant 
garden,  kept  in  excellent  order;  and,  indeed,  I  saw  none  of  the  out- 
ward signs  of  authorship  either  in  the  house  or  the  landlord,  who  is 
one  of  those  few  writers  of  the  age  that  stand  upon  their  own  foun-  40 
dation,  without  patronage,  and  above  dependence.  If  there  was 
nothing  characteristic  in  the  entertainer,  the  company  made  ample 
amends  for  his  want  of  singularity. 

"  At  two  in   the  afternoon,   I   found   myself  one  of  ten   messmates 
seated  at  table;    and  I  question  if  the  whole  kingdom  could  produce  45 


HOGARTH,  SMOLLETT,  AND   FIELDIAG   22^ 

I  have  no  doubt  that  this  picture  by  Smollett  is 
as  faithful  a  one  as  any  from  the  pencil  of  his  kin- 
dred humourist,  Hogarth. 

We  have  before  us,  and  painted  by  his  own  hand, 

c  such  another  assemblage  of  originals.  Among  their  peculiarities, 
I  do  not  mention  those  of  dress,  which  may  b;  purely  accidental 
\\  hat  struck  me  were  oddities  originally  produced  by  affectation, 
and  afterwards  confirmed  by  habit.  One  of  them  wore  spectacles 
at   dinner,    and   another   his   hat   flapped;     though    (as    Ivy   told   me) 

10  the  first  was  noted  for  having  a  seaman's  eye  when  a  bailiff  was  in 
the  wind;  and  the  other  was  never  known  to  labour  under  any 
weakness  or  defect  of  vision,  except  about  five  years  ago,  when  he 
was  complimented  with  a  couple  of  black  eyes  by  a  player,  with 
whom   he  had  quarrelled  in   his  drink.     A  third  wore  a  laced  stock- 

15  ing,  and  made  use  of  crutches,  because,  once  in  his  life,  he  had  been 
laid  up  with  a  broken  leg,  though  no  man  could  leap  over  a  stick 
with  more  agility.  A  fourth  had  contracted  such  an  antipathy  to  the 
country,  that  he  insisted  upon  sitting  with  his  back  towards  the 
window    that    looked    into    the    garden;     and    when    a    dish    of    cauli- 

20  flower  was  set  upon  the  table,  he  snuffed  up  volatile  salts  to  keep 
him  from  fainting;  yet  this  delicate  person  was  the  son  of  a  cotta- 
ger, born  under  a  hedge,  and  had  many  years  run  wild  among  asses 
on  a  common.  A  fifth  affected  distraction:  when  spoke  to,  he  al- 
ways  answered    from   the   purpose.     Sometimes   he    suddenly    started 

25  up,  and  rapped  out  a  dreadful  oath;  sometimes  he  burst  out  a 
laughing;  then  he  folded  his  arms,  and  sighed;  and  then  he  hissed 
like  fifty  serpents. 

"At  first,  I   really  thought  he  was  mad;    and,  as  he  sat  near  me, 
began   to   be   under   some   apprehensions   for   my   own    safety;     when 

30  our  landlord,  perceiving  me  alarmed,  assured  me  aloud  that  I  had 
nothing  to  fear.  '  The  gentleman,'  said  he,  '  is  trying  to  act  a  part 
for  which  he  is  by  no  means  qualified;  if  he  had  all  the  inclination 
in  the  world,  it  is  not  in  his  power  to  be  mad;  his  spirits  are  too  flat 
to    be   kindled    into   phrenzy.'     '  'Tis    no    bad   p-p-puff,    how-owever,' 

35  observed  a  person  in  a  tarnished  laced  coat:  '  aff-ffected  m-madness 
w-i!l  p-pass  for  w-wit  w-with  nine-nineteen  out  of  t-twenty.'  '  And 
affected  stuttering  for  humour,'  replied  our  landlord;  'though, 
God  knows  !  there  is  no  affinity  between  them.'  It  seems  this  wag, 
after   having   made    some   abortive   attempts    in    plsin    speaking,    had 

40  recourse   to   this   defect,   by   means   of  which    he   frequently   extorted 
the  laugh  of  the  company,  without  the  least  expense  of  genius;    and 
that  imperfection,   which  he  had  at  first  counterfeited,   was  now  be- 
come so  habitual,  that  he  could  not  lay  it  aside. 
"  A   certain    winking    genius,    who    wore    yellow    gloves    at    dinner, 

45  had,  on  his  first  introduction,   taken   such  offence  at   S ,   because 

he  looked  and  talked,  and  ate  and  drank,  like  any  other  man,  that 
he  spoke  contemptuously  of  his  understanding  ever  after,  and  never 


226  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

Tobias  Smollett,  the  manly,  kindly,  honest,  and 
irascible;  worn  and  battered,  but  still  brave  and 
full  of  heart,  after  a  long  struggle  against  a  hard 

would  repeat  liis  visit,  until  he  had  exhibited  the  following  proof 
of  his  caprice.     Wat   Wyvil,  the  poet,  having  made  some  unsuccess-    5 

ful   advances   towards   an   intimacy   with    S ,    at    last   gave   him   to 

understand,  by  a  third  person,  that  he  had  written  a  poem  in  his 
praise,  and  a  satire  against  his  person:  that  if  he  would  admit  him 
to  his  house,  the  first  should  be  immediately  sent  to  press;  but 
that    if   he    persisted    in    declining   his    friendship,    he   would    publish  10 

the  satire  without  delay.     S replied,  that  he  looked  upon  Wyvil's 

panegyric  as,  in  effect,  a  species  of  infamy,  and  would  resent  it 
accordingly  with  a  good  cudgel;  but  if  he  published  the  satire,  he 
might  deserve  his  compassion,  and  had  nothing  to  fear  from  his 
revenge.       Wyvil     having     considered     the     alternative,     resolved    to  15 

mortify    S by    printing   the    panegyric,    for    which    he   received    a 

sound  drubbing.  Then  he  swore  the  peace  against  the  aggressor,  who, 
in   order  to   avoid   a   prosecution   at   law,   admitted   him   to   his   good 

graces.     It  was  the  singularity  in   S 's   conduct  on  this  occasion, 

that    reconciled    him    to    the    yellow-gloved    philosopher,    who   owned  20 
he    had    some    genius;      and    from    that    period    cultivated    his    ac- 
quaintance. 

"  Curious  to  know  upon  what  subjects  the  several  talents  of  my 
fellow-guests  were  employed,  I  applied  to  my  communicative  friend 
Dick  Ivy,  who  gave  me  to  understand  that  most  of  them  were,  or  25 
had  been,  understrappers,  or  journeymen,  to  more  creditable 
authors,  for  whom  they  translated,  collated,  and  compiled,  in  the 
business  of  bookmaking;  and  that  all  of  them  had,  at  different 
times,  laboured  in  the  service  of  our  landlord,  though  they  had  now 
set  up  for  themselves  in  various  departments  of  literature.  Not  30 
only  their  talents,  but  also  their  nations  and  dialects,  were  so  vari- 
ous, that  our  conversation  resembled  the  confusion  of  tongues  at 
Babel.  We  had  the  Irish  brogue,  the  Scotch  accent,  and  foreign 
idiom,  twanged  off  by  the  most  discordant  vociferation;  for  as  they 
all  spoke  together,  no  man  had  any  chance  to  be  heard,  unless  he  35 
could  bawl  louder  than  his  fellows.  It  must  be  owned,  however, 
there  was  nothing  pedantic  in  their  discourse;  they  carefully  avoided 
all  learned  disquisitions,  and  endeavoured  to  be  facetious:  nor  did 
their  endeavours  always  miscarry;  some  droll  repartee  passed,  and 
much  laughter  was  excited;  and  if  any  individual  lost  his  temper  40 
so  far  as  to  transgress  the  bounds  of  decorum,  he  was  effectually 
checked  by  the  master  of  the  feast,  who  exerted  a  sort  of  paternal 
authority  over   this   irritable   tribe. 

"  The  most   learned   philosopher  of  the  whole  collection,   who  had 
been   expelled   the   university   for   atheism,    has   made   great   progress  45 
in  a  refutation  of  Lord    Bolingbroke's  metaphysical  works,  which  is 
said   to   be   equally   ingenious   and   orthodox;     but,   in   the   meantime, 
he  has   been   presented   to   the   grand  jury   as   a   public   nuisance   for 


HOGARTH,   SMOLLETT,  AND    FIELDLNG    22/ 

fortune.  His  brain  had  been  busied  with  a  hun- 
dred different  schemes;  he  had  been  reviewer  and 
historian,  critic,  medical  writer,  poet,  pamphleteer. 

having  blasphemed  in  an  alehouse  on  the  Lord's  day.     The  Scotch- 
e  man    gives   lectures   on   the   pronunciation   of   the    English    language, 
which  he  is  now  publishing  by  subscription. 

"  The  Irishman  is  a  political  writer,  and  goes  by  the  name  of  My 
Lord  Potatoc.  He  wrote  a  pamphlet  in  vindication  of  a  Minister, 
hoping  his  zeal  would  be  rewarded  with  some  place  or  pension; 
lO  but  finding  himself  neglected  in  that  quarter,  he  whispered  about 
that  the  pamphlet  was  written  by  the  Minister  himself,  and  he  pub- 
lished an  answer  to  his  own  production.  In  this  he  addressed  the 
author  under  the  title  of  '  your  Lordship,'  with  such  solemnity, 
that  the  public  swallowed  the  deceit,  and  bought  up  the  whole  im- 
15  pression.  The  wise  politicians  of  the  metropolis  declared  they  were 
both  masterly  performances,  and  chuckled  over  the  flimsy  reveries 
of  an  ignorant  garreteer,  as  the  profound  speculations  of  a  veteran 
statesman,  acquainted  with  all  the  secrets  of  the  cabinet.  The  im- 
posture was  detected  in  the  sequel,  and  our  Hibernian  pamphleteer 
20  retains  no  part  of  his  assumed  importance  but  the  bare  title  of  '  my 
Lord,'  and  the  upper  part  of  the  table  at  the  potatoe-ordinary  in 
Shoe  Lane. 

"  Opposite  to  me  sat  a  Piedmontese,  who  had  obliged  the  public 
with  a  humorous  satire,  entitled  The  Balance  of  the  English  Poets; 
25  a  performance  which  evinced  the  great  modesty  and  taste  of  the 
author,  and,  in  particular,  his  intimacy  with  the  elegancies  of  the 
English  language.  The  sage,  who  laboured  under  the  aypo<^o0ia, 
or  '  horror  of  green  fields,'  had  just  finished  a  treatise  on  practical 
agriculture,  though,  in  fact,  he  had  never  seen  corn  growing  in  his 
30  life,  and  was  so  ignorant  of  grain,  that  our  entertainer,  in  the  face 
of  the  whole  company,  made  him  own  that  a  plate  of  hominy  was 
the  best  rice-pudding  he  had  ever  eat. 

"  The    stutterer    had    almost    finished    his    travels    through    Europe 

and  part  of  Asia,  without  ever  budging  beyond  the  liberties  of  the 

35  King's  Bench,  except  in  term-time  with  a  tipstaff  for  his  companion; 

and   as   for   little   Tim    Cropdale,   the   most   facetious   member  of  the 

whole  society,  he  had  happily  wound  up  the  catastrophe  of  a  virgin 

tragedy,   from  the  exhibition   of  which   he   promised   himself  a   large 

fund    of   profit   and    reputation.     Tim    had    made   shift   to   live    many 

40  years  by  writing  novels,   at  the  rate  of  five  pounds  a  volume;     but 

that  branch    of   business   is   now   engrossed   by   female   authors,   who 

publish    merely   for   the   propagation    of   virtue,   with    so    much   ease, 

and   spirit,    and   delicacy,    and   knowledge   of   the   human    heart,   and 

all  in  the  serene  tranquillity  of  high  life,  that  the  reader  is  not  only 

45  enchanted  by  their  genius,  but  reformed  by  their  morality. 

"  After   dinner,   we   adjourned   into   the   garden,   where   I    observed 
Mr.   S give  a  short  separate  audience  to   every  individual  in   a 


228  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

He  had  fought  endless  Hterary  battles;  and  braved 
and  wielded  for  years  the  cudgels  of  controversy. 
It  was  a  hard  and  savage  fight  in  those  days,  and  a 
niggard  pay.  He  was  oppressed  by  illness,  age, 
narrow  fortune ;  but  his  spirit  was  still  resolute,  and  5 
his  courage  steady;  the  battle  over,  he  could  do 
justice  to  the  enemy  with  whom  he  had  been  so 
fiercely  engaged,  and  give  a  not  unfriendly  grasp 
to  the  hand  that  had  mauled  him.  He  is  like  one 
of  those  Scotch  cadets,  of  whom  history  gives  usio 
so  many  examples,  and  whom,  with  a  national 
fidelity,  the  great  Scotch  novelist  has  painted  so 
charmingly.     Of  gentle  birth  *  and  narrow  means, 

small    remote   filbert-walk,    from    whence    most   of   them    dropped    off 
one  after  another,  without  further  ceremony."  15 

Smollett's  house  was  in  Lawrence  Lane,  Chelsea,  and  is  now 
destroyed. — See  Handbook  of  London,  p.   115. 

"  The  person  of  Smollett  was  eminently  handsome,  his  features  pre- 
possessing,  and,   by  the  joint  testimony  of  all  his  surviving  friends,  his 
conversation,  in  the  highest  degree,  instructive  and  amusing.     Of  his  20 
disposition,  those  who  have  read  his  works  (and  who  has  not')  may 
form  a  very  accurate  estimate;  for  in  each  of  them  he  has  presented, 
and  sometimes  under  various  points  of  view,  the  leading  features  of 
his    own    character    without    disguising    the    most    unfavourable    of 
them.  .  .  .  When    unseduced    by    his    satirical    propensities,    he    was  25 
kind,    generous,    and    humane   to    others;     bold,    upright,    and    inde- 
pendent  in   his  own   character;     stooped   to  no   patron,   sued  for   no 
favour,    but    honestly    and    honourably    maintained    himself    on    his 
literary    labours.  .  .  .  lie    was    a    doting    father    and    an    affectionate 
husband;    and  the  warm  zeal  with  which  his  memory  was  cherished  3^ 
by    his    surviving    friends    showed    clearly    the    reliance    which    they 
placed  upon  his  regard." — Sir  Walter  Scott. 

*  Smollett  of  Bonhill,  in  Dumbartonshire.  Arms,  azure,  a  bend,  or, 
between  a  lion  rampant,  ppr.,  holding  in  his  paw  a  banner,  argent, 
and  a  bugle-horn,  also  ppr.     Crest,  an  oak-tree,  ppr.     Motto,   Vircsco.  35 

Smollett's  father,  Archibald,  was  the  fourth  son  of  Sir  James 
Smollett  of  Bonhill,  a  Scotch  Judge  and  Member  of  Parliament, 
and  one  of  the  commissioners  for  framing  the  Union  with  England. 
Archibald  married,  without  the  old  gentleman's  consent,  and  died 
early,  leaving  his  children  dependent  on  their  grandfather.  Tobias,  40 
the  second  son,  was  born  in  17J1,  in  the  old  house  of  Dalquharn  in 
the  valley  of  Leven;    and  all  his  life  loved  and  admired  that  valley 


HOGARTH,   SMOLLETT,  AND    FIELDING   229 

going  out  from  his  northern  home  to  win  his  for- 
tune in  the  world,  and  to  fight  his  way,  armed  with 
courage,  hunger,  and  keen  wits.  His  crest  is  a 
shattered  oak-tree,  with  green  leaves  yet  spring- 
5  ing  from  it.  On  his  ancient  coat-of-arms  there  is 
a  lion  and  a  horn;  this  shield  of  his  was  battered 
and  dinted  in  a  hundred  fights  and  brawls,* 
throuirh  which  the  stout  Scotchman  bore  it  cour- 


and  Loch  Lomond  beyond  all  the  valleys  and  lakes  in  Europe.     He 
10  learned    the    "  rudiments  "    at     Dumbarton     Grammar    School,    and 
studied  at  Glasgow. 

But  when  he  was  only  ten,  his  grandfather  died,  and  left  him 
without  provision  (figuring  as  the  old  judge  in  Roderick  Random  in 
consequence,  according  to  Sir  Walter).  Tobias,  armed  with  the 
15  Regicide,  a  Tragedy — a  provision  precisely  similar  to  that  with  which 
Doctor  Johnson  had  started,  just  before — came  up  to  London.  The 
Regicide  came  to  no  good,  though  at  first  patronised  by  Lord 
Lyttelton  ("'  one  of  those  little  fellows  who  are  sometimes  called 
great  men,"  Smollett  says)  ;  and  Smollett  embarked  as  "  surgeon's 
20  mate  "  on  board  a  line-of-battle  ship,  and  served  in  the  Carthagena 
expedition,  in  1741.  He  left  the  service  in  the  West  Indies,  and, 
after  residing  some  time  in  Jamaica,  returned  to  England  in   1746. 

He    was    now    unsuccessful    as    a    physician,    to   begin    with;     pub- 
lished   the    satires.    Advice    and    Reproof,    without    any    luck;     and 
25  (1747)    married   the   "  beautiful   and   accomplished   Miss   Lascelles." 
In  1748  he  brought  out  his  Roderick  Random,  which  at  once  made  a 
"  hit."     The  subsequent  events  of  his  life  may  be  presented,  chrono- 
logically, in  a  bird's-eye  view:— 

1750.     Made  a  tour  to  Paris,  where  he  chiefly  wrote  Peregrine  Pickle. 
30      1751.     Published  Peregrine  Pickle. 

1753.     Published  Adventures  of  Ferdinand  Count  Fathom. 

1755.  Published  version  of  Don  Quixote. 

1756.  Began  the  Critical  Review. 

1758.     Published  his  History  of  England. 
35      1763-1766.     Travelling  in  France  and  Italy;    published  his  Travels. 

1769.  Published  Adventures  of  an  Atom. 

1770.  Set   out   for   Italy;     died   at   Leghorn,   21st   of   October    1771, 
in  the  fifty-first  year  of  his  age. 

*  A    good    specimen    ^    the    old    "  slashing  "    style    of    writing    is 

40  presented   by  the   paragraph   on   Admiral    Knowles,   which   subjected 

Smollett   to   prosecution   and   imprisonment.     The   admiral's   defence 

on   the  occasion  of  the  failure  of  the   Rochefort  expedition  came  to 

be  examined  before  the  tribunal  of  the  Critical  Review. 

"  He  is,"  said  our  author,   "  an  admiral  without  conduct,   an  en- 


230  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

ageously.  You  see  somehow  that  he  is  a  gentle- 
man, through  all  his  battling  and  struggling,  his 
poverty,  his  hard-fought  successes,  and  his  defeats. 
His  novels  are  recollections  of  his  own  adventures; 
his  characters  drawn,  as  I  should  think,  from  per-  5 
sonages  with  whom  he  became  acquainted  in  his 
own  career  of  life.     Strange  companions  he  must 

gineer  without  knowledge,  an  officer  without  resolution,  and  a   man 
without  veracity  !  " 

Three   months'    imprisonment    in    the    King's   Bench    avenged   this  jq 
stinging  paragraph. 

But  the  Critical  was  to  Smollett  a  perpetual  fountain  of  "  hot 
water."  Among  less  important  controversies  may  be  mentioned  that 
with  Grainger,  the  translator  of  Tibullus.  Grainger  replied  in  a 
pamphlet;  and  in  the  next  number  of  the  Review  we  find  him  Ig 
threatened  with  "  castigation,"  as  an  "  owl  that  has  broken  from  his 
mew  !  " 

In  Doctor  Moore's  biography  of  him  is  a  pleasant  anecdote.  After 
publishing  the  Don  Quixote,  he  returned  to  Scotland  to  pay  a  visit 
to  his   mother: —  20 

"  On  Smollett's  arrival,  he  was  introduced  to  his  mother  with  the 
connivance  of  Mrs.  Telfer  (her  daughter),  as  a  gentleman  from  the 
West  Indies,  who  was  intimately  acquainted  with  her  son.  The 
better  to  support  his  assumed  character,  he  endeavoured  to  preserve 
a  serious  countenance,  approaching  to  a  frown;  but  while  his  25 
mother's  eyes  were  riveted  on  his  countenance,  he  could  not  refrain 
from  smiling:  she  immediately  sprung  from  her  chair,  and  throw- 
ing her  arms  round  his  neck,  exclaimed,  '  Ah,  my  son  !  my  son  ! 
I  have  found  you  at  last  !  ' 

"  She   afterwards  told   him,    that   if   he   had   kept   his   austere   looks  30 
and  continued  to  gloom,  he  might  have  escaped  detection  some  time 
longer,   but   '  your   old   roguish    smile,'   added   she,    '  betrayed   you   at 
once.'  " 

"  Shortly    after    the    publication    of    The    Adventures    of    an    Atom, 
disease  again   attacked   Smollett   with   redoubled  violence.      Attempts  35 
being  vainly   mafle   to  obtain   for  him   the   office   of   Consul   in   some 
part    of    the    Mediterranean,    he    was    compelled    to    seek    a    warmer 
climate,   without   better   means  of  provision  than  his  own   precarious 
finances  could  afford.     The  kindness  of  his  distinguis-hed  friend  and 
countryman.    Dr.    Armstrong    (then    abroad),    procured    for    Dr.    and  40 
Mrs.    Smollett    a    house    at    Monte    Nero,    a« village    situated    on    the 
side   of   a   mountain    overlooking   the   sea,    in    the   neighbourhood   of 
Leghorn,  a  romantic  and  salutary  abode,  where  he  prepared  for  the 
press    the    last,    and,    like    music    '  sweetest    in    the    close,'    the    most 
pleasing   of   his    compositions.    The   Expedition   of   Humphrey   Clinker.  45 
This  delightful  work  was  published  in   1771."— Sir  Walter  Seott. 


HOGARTH,  SMOLLETT,  AND   FIELDING   23 1 

have  had;  queer  acquaintances  he  made  in  the  Glas- 
gow College — in  the  country  apothecary's  shop;  in 
the  gun-room  of  the  man-of-war  where  he  served 
as  surgeon;  and  in  the  hard  life  on  shpre,  where 
5  the  sturdy  adventurer  struggled  for  fortune.  He 
did  not  invent  much,  as  I  fancy,  but  had  the  keenest 
perceptive  faculty,  and  described  what  he  saw  with 
wonderful  relish  and  delightful  broad  humour.  I 
think  Uncle  Bowling,  in  "  Roderick  Random,"  is 

10 as  good  a  character  as  Squire  Western  himself;  and 
Mr.  Morgan,  the  Welsh  apothecary,  is  as  pleasant 
as  Doctor  Caius.  What  man  who  has  made  his 
inestimable  acquaintance — what  novel-reader  who 
loves  Don  Quixote  and  Major  Dalgetty — will  re- 

15  fuse  his  most  cordial  acknowledgments  to  the  ad- 
mirable Lieutenant  Lismahago?  The  novel  of 
"  Humphrey  Clinker  "  is,  I  do  think,  the  most 
laughable  story  that  has  ever  been  written  since  the 
goodly  art  of  novel-writing  began.    Winifred  Jenk- 

20  ins  and  Tabitha  Bramble  must  keep  Englishmen 
on  the  grin  for  ages  yet  to  come;  and  in  their  letters 
and  the  story  of  their  lov^es  there  is  a  perpetual 
fount  of  sparkling  laughter,  as  inexhaustible  as 
Bladud's  well. 

25  Fielding,  too,  has  described,  though  v/ith  a 
greater  hand,  the  characters  and  scenes  which  he 
knew  and  saw.  He  had  more  than  ordinary  op- 
portunities for  becoming  acquainted  with  life.  His 
family  and  education,  first — his  fortunes  and  mis- 

30  fortunes  afterwards,  brought  him  into  the  society  of 
every  rank  and  condition  of  man.     He  is  himself 


232  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

the  hero  of  his  books:  he  is  wild  Tom  Jones,  he  is 
wild  Captain  Booth;  less  wild,  I  am  glad  to  think, 
than  his  predecessor:  at  least  heartily  conscious 
of  demerit,  and  anxious  to  amend. 

When  Fielding  first  came  upon  the  town  in  1727,  5 
the  recollection  of  the  great  wits  was  still  fresh  in 
the  cofTee-houses  and  assemblies,  and  the  judges 
there  declared  that  young  Hari'v  Fielding  had 
more  spirits  and  wit  than  Congreve  or  any  of  his 
brilliant  successors.  His  figure  was  tall  and  stal- 10 
wart;  his  face  handsome,  manly,  and  noble-look- 
ing; to  the  very  last  days  of  his  life  he  retained  a 
grandeur  of  air,  and  although  worn  down  by  dis- 
ease, his  aspect  and  presence  imposed  respect  upon 
the  people  round  about  him.  15 

A  dispute  took  place  between  Mr.  Fielding  and 
the  captain  *  of  the  ship  in  which  he  was  making 
his  last  voyage,  and  Fielding  relates  how  the  man 
finally  went  dowm  on  his  knees,  and  begged  his 
passenger's  pardon.  He  was  living  up  to  the  last  20 
days  of  his  life,  and  his  spirit  never  gave  in.  His 
vital  power  must  have  been  immensely  strong. 
Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu  f  prettily  charac- 
terises  Fielding  and  this   capacity    for    happiness 

*  The   dispute  with  the   captain   arose  from   the   wish   of  that   func-  25 
tionary  to  intrude  on  his  right  to  his  cabin,  for  which  he  had  paid 
thirty  pounds.     After  recounting  the  circumstances   of  the  apology, 
he  characteristically  adds: — 

"  And  here,  that  I  may  not  be  thought  the  sly  trumpeter  of  my 
own  praises,  I  do  utterly  disclaim  all  praise  on  the  occasion.  30 
Neither  did  the  greatness  of  my  mind  dictate,  nor  the  force  of  my 
Christianity  exact'  this  forgiveness.  To  speak  truth,  I  forgave  him 
from  a  motive  which  would  make  men  much  more  forgiving,  if  they 
were  much  wiser  than  they  are:  because  it  was  convenient  for  me 
so  to  do."  35 

t  Lady  Mary  was  his  second  cousin — their  respective  grandfathers 


HOGARTH,  SMOLLETT,  AND   FLELDTNG    233 

which  he  possessed,  in  a  little  notice  of  his  death 
when  she  compares  him  to  Steele,  who  was  as  im- 
provident and  as  happy  as  he  was,  and  says  that 
both  should  have  gone  on  living  for  ever.  One 
5  can  fancy  the  eagerness  and  gusto  with  which  a 
man  of  Fielding's  frame,  with  his  vast  health  and 
robust  appetite,  his  ardent  spirits,  his  joyful  hu- 
mour, and  his  keen  and  healthy  relish  for  life,  must 
have  seized  and  drunk  that  cup  of  pleasure  which 

10  the  town  oflfered  to  him.  Can  any  of  my  hearers 
remember  the  youthful  feats  of  a  college  breakfast 
— the  meats  devoured  and  the  cups  quaffed  in  that 
Homeric  feast?  I  can  call  to  mind  some  of  the 
heroes  of  those  youthful  banquets,  and  fancy  young 

15  Fielding  from  Leyden  rushing  upon  the  feast,  with 
his  great  laugh,  and  immense  healthy  young  appe- 
tite,   eager   and    vigorous    to   enjoy.      The    young 

being   sons   of  George   Fielding,   Earl   of   Desmond,   son   of   William, 
Earl  of  Denbigh. 

20      In  a  letter  dated  just  a  week  before  his  death,  she  says: — 

"  H.  Fielding  has  given  a  true  picture  of  himself  and  his  first 
wife  in  the  characters  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Booth,  some  compliments  to 
his  own  figure  excepted;  and  I  am  persuaded,  several  of  the  in- 
cidents he  mentions  are  real  matters  of  fact.     I  wonder  he  does  not 

25  perceive  Tom  Jones  and  Mr.  Booth  are  sorry  scoundrels.  .  .  .  Fielding 
lias  really  a  fund  of  true  humour,  and  was  to  be  pitied  at  his  first 
entrance  into  the  world,  having  no  choice,  as  he  said  himself,  but 
to  be  a  hackney  writer  or  a  hackney  coachman.  His  genius  deserved 
a  better  fate;    but  I  cannot  help  blaming  that  continued  indiscretion, 

30  to  give  it  the  softest  name,  that  has  run  through  his  life,  and  I  am 
afraid  still  remains.  .  .  .  Since  I  was  born  no  original  has  appeared 
excepting  Congreve,  and  Fielding,  who  would,  I  believe,  have  ap- 
proached nearer  to  his  excellences,  if  not  forced  by  his  necessities 
to  publish  without  correction,  and  throw  many  productions  into  the 

35  world  he  would  have  thrown  into  the  fire,  if  meat  could  have  been 
got  without  money,  or  money  without  scribbling.  ...  I  am  sorry 
not  to  see  any  more  of  Peregrine  Pickle's  performances;  I  wish  you 
would  tell  me  his  name." — Letters  and  Works  (Lord  Wharncliffe's 
ed.),  vol.  iii.  pp.  93,  94. 


234  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

man's  wit  and  manners  made  him  friends  every- 
where: he  Hved  with  the  grand  Man's  society  of 
those  days;  he  was  courted  by  peers  and  men  of 
weahh  and  fashion.  As  he  had  a  paternal  allow- 
ance from  his  father,  General  Fielding,  which,  to  5 
use  Henry's  own  phrase,  any  man  might  pay  who 
would;  as  he  liked  good  wine,  good  clothes,  and 
good  company,  which  are  all  expensive  articles  to 
purchase,  Harry  Fielding  began  to  run  into  debt, 
and  borrow  money  in  that  easy  manner  in  which  lo 
Captain  Booth  borrows  money  in  the  novel:  was 
in  nowise  particular  in  accepting  a  few  pieces  from 
the  purses  of  his  rich  friends,  and  bore  down  upon 
more  than  one  of  them,  as  Walpole  tells  us  only 
too  truly,  for  a  dinner  or  a  guinea.  To  supply  him-  15 
self  with  the  latter,  he  began  to  write  theatrical 
pieces,  having  already,  no  doubt,  a  considerable 
acquaintance  amongst  the  Oldfields  and  Brace- 
girdles  behind  the  scenes.  He  laughed  at  these 
pieces  and  scorned  them.  When  the  audience  upon  20 
one  occasion  began  to  hiss  a  scene  which  he  was 
too  lazy  to  correct,  and  regarding  which,  when 
Garrick  remonstrated  with  him,  he  said  that  the 
public  was  too  stupid  to  find  out  the  badness  of  his 
work :  when  the  audience  began  to  hiss,  Fielding  25 
said  with  characteristic  coolness — "  They  have 
found  it  out,  have  they?  "  He  did  not  prepare  his 
novels  in  this  way,  and  with  a  very  different  care 
and  interest  laid  the  foundations  and  built  up  the 
edifices  of  his  future  fame.  30 

Time  and  shower  have  very  little  damaged  those. 
The   fashion  and   ornaments   are,  perhaps,   of  the 


HOGARTH,   SMOLLETT,  AND    FIELDING    235 

architecture  of  that  age,  but  the  buildings  remain 
strong  and  lofty,  and  of  admirable  proportions — 
masterpieces  of  genius  and  monuments  of  work- 
manlike skill. 

5  I  cannot  offer  or  hope  to  make  a  hero  of  Harry 
Fielding.  Why  hide  his  faults?  Why  conceal  his 
weaknesses  in  a  cloud  of  periphrases?  Why  not 
show  him,  like  him  as  he  is,  not  robed  in  a  marble 
toga,  and  draped  and  polished  in  an  heroic  atti- 

10  tude,  but  with  inked  r.ufHes,  and  claret  stains  on  his 
tarnished  laced  coat,  and  on  his  manly  face  the 
marks  of  good  fellowship,  of  illness,  of  kindness, 
of  care  and  wine?  Stained  as  you  see  him,  and 
w^orn  by  care  and  dissipation,  that  man  retains  some 

15  of  the  most  precious  and  splendid  human  qualities 
and  endowments.  He  has  an  admirable  natural  love 
of  truth,  the  keenest  instinctive  antipathy  to  hypo- 
crisy, the  happiest  satirical  gift  of  laughing  it 
to   scorn.      His   wit   is   wonderfully   wise   and   de- 

2otective;  it  flashes  upon  a  rogue  and  lightens  up  a 
rascal  like  a  policeman's  lantern.  He  is  one  of  the 
manliest  and  kindliest  of  human  beings:  in  the 
midst  of  all  his  imperfections,  he  respects  female 
innocence  and  infantine  tenderness  as  you  would 

25  suppose  such  a  great-hearted,  courageous  soul 
would  respect  and  care  for  them.  He  could  not  be 
so  brave,  generous,  truth-telling  as  he  is,  were  he 
not  infinitely  merciful,  pitiful,  and  tender.  He  will 
give  any  man  his  purse — he  can't  help  kindness  and 

30  profusion.  He  may  have  low  tastes,  but  not  a 
mean  mind;  he  admires  with  all  his  heart  good  and 
virtuous  men,  stoops  to  no  flattery,  bears  no  ran- 


236  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

cour,  disdains  all  disloyal  arts,  does  his  public  duty 
uprightly,  is  fondly  loved  by  his  family,  and  dies  at 
his  work.* 

If  that  theory  be — and  I  have  no  doubt  it  is — 
the  right  and  safe  one,  that  human  nature  is  always  5 
pleased  with  the  spectacle  of  innocence  rescued  by 
fidelity,  purity,  and  courage,  I  suppose  that  of  the 
heroes  of  Fielding's  three  novels,  we  should  like 
honest  Joseph  Andrews  the  best,  and  Captain 
Booth  the  second,  and  Tom  Jones  the  third. f  10 

Joseph  Andrews,  though  he  wears  Lady  Booby's 
cast-ofT  livery,  is,  I  think,  to  the  full  as  polite  as 
Tom  Jones  in  his  fustian  suit,  or  Captain  Booth 
in  regimentals.  He  has,  like  those  heroes,  large 
calves,  broad  shoulders,  a  high  courage,  and  a '5 
handsome  face.  The  accounts  of  Joseph's  bravery 
and  good  qualities ;  his  voice,  too  musical  to  halloo 
to  the  dogs;  his  bravery  in  riding  races  for  the 
gentlemen  of  the  county,  and  his  constancy  in  re- 
fusing bribes  and  temptation,  have  something  af-  20 
fecting  in  their  naivete  and  freshness,  and  pre- 
possess one  in  favour  of  that  handsome  young  hero. 
The  rustic  bloom  of  Fanny,  and  the  delightful  sim- 
plicity   of    Parson    Adams,    are    described    with    a 

*  He    sailed    for    Lisbon,    from    Gravesend,    on    Sunday    morning,  25 
June    30th,    1754;     and    began    The   Journal   of    a    Voyage    during    the 
passage.      He   died   at    Lisbon,    in   the   beginning   of   October   of  the 
same  year.     He  lies  buried  there,  in  the  English  Protestant  church- 
yard, near  the  Estrella  Church,  with  this  inscription  over  him:— 

"  HENRICUS    FIELDING  3^ 

LUGET    BRITANNIA    GREMIO    NGN    DARI 
FOVERE    NATUM." 

t  Fielding    himself    is    said    by    Doctor    W'arton    to    have    preferred 
Joseph  Andrews  to  his  other  writings. 


HOGARTH,  SMOLLETT,  AND    FIELD LNG   237 

friendliness  which  wins  the  reader  of  their  story; 
we  part  from  them  with  more  regret  than  from 
Booth  and  Jones. 

Fielding,  no  doubt,  began  to  write  this  novel  in 
5  ridicule  of  "  Pamela,"  for  which  work  one  can  un- 
derstand the  hearty  contempt  and  antipathy  which 
such  an  athletic  and  boisterous  genius  as  Field- 
ing's must  have  entertained.  He  couldn't  do  other- 
wise than  laugh  at  the  puny  cockney  bookseller, 

ro  pouring  out  endless  volumes  of  sentimental  twad- 
dle, and  hold  him  up  to  scorn  as  a  mollcoddle  and 
a  milksop.  His  genius  had  been  nursed  on  sack 
posset,  and  not  on  dishes  of  tea.  His  muse  had  sung 
the  loudest  in  tavern  choruses,  had  seen  the  day- 

15  light  streaming  in  over  thousands  of  emptied  bowls, 
and  reeled  home  to  chambers  on  the  shoulders  of 
the  watchman.  Richardson's  goddess  was  attended 
by  old  maids  and  dowagers,  and  fed  on  mufifins  and 
bohea.     "  Milksop!  "   roars   Harry   Fielding,   clat- 

2oteringat  the  timid  shop-shutters.  "Wretch!  Mon- 
ster! Mohock!"  shrieks  the  sentimental  author  of 
"  Pamela  ";  *  and  all  the  ladies  of  his  court  cackle 
out  an  affrighted  chorus.  Fielding  proposes  to 
write  a  book  in  ridicule  of  the  author,  whom  he 

25  disliked  and  utterly  scorned  and  laughed  at;    but 

*  "  Richardson,"  says  worthy  Mrs.  Barbauld,  in  her  Memoir  of 
him,  prefixed  to  his  Correspondence,  "  was  exceedingly  hurt  at  this 
(Joseph  Andrews),  the  more  so  as  they  had  been  on  good  terms, 
and  he  was  very  intimate  with  Fielding's  two  sisters.    He  never  appears 

30  cordially  to  have  forgiven  it  (perhaps  it  was  not  in  human  nature  he 
should),  and  he  always  spealcs  in  his  letters  with  a  great  deal  of 
asperity  of  Tom  Jones,  more  indeed  than  was  quite  graceful  in  a 
rival  author.  No  doubt  he  himself  thought  his  indignation  was 
solely  excited  by  the  loose  morality  of  the  work  and  of  its  author, 

35  but  he  could  tolerate  Gibber." 


238  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

he  is  himself  of  so  generous,  jovial,  and  kindly  a 
turn  that  he  begins  to  like  the  characters  which  he 
invents,  can't  help  making  them  manly  and  pleasant 
as  well  as  ridiculous,  and  before  he  has  done  with 
them  all,  loves  them  heartily  every  one.  5 

Richardson's     sickening    antipathy     for     Harry 
Fielding  is  quite  as  natural  as  the  other's  laughter 
and  contempt   at   the  sentimentalist.      I   have   not  . 
learned    that    these    likings    and    dislikings    have 
ceased  in  the  present  day :    and  every  author  must  10 
lay  his  account  not  only  to  misrepresentation,  but 
to    honest    enmity    among    critics,    and    to    being 
hated  and  abused  for  good  as  well  as  for  bad  rea- 
sons.    Richardson  disliked  Fielding's  works  quite 
honestly:   Walpole  quite  honestly  spoke  of  them  as'"? 
vulgar    and    stupid.      Their    squeamish    stomachs 
sickened  at  the  rough  fare  and  the  rough  guests 
assembled   at   Fielding's   jolly   revel.      Indeed   the 
cloth  might  have  been  cleaner:   and  the  dinner  and 
the  company  were  scarce  such  as  suited  a  dandy.  20 
The  kind  and  wise  old  Johnson  would  not  sit  down 
w^ith  him.*     But  a  greater  scholar  than  Johnson 
could  afTonl  to  admire  that  astonishing  genius  of 
Harry    Fielding;     and    we    all    know    the    lofty 
panegyric  which  Gibbon  wrote  of  him,  and  which  25 
remains  a  towering  monument  to  the  great  nov- 
elist's memory.     "  Our  immortal   Fielding,"   Gib- 
bon writes,   "  was   of  the   younger  branch  of  the 

*  It   must  always  be   borne   in   mind,   that   besides   that   the   Doctor 
couldn't  be  expected  to  like   Fielding's  wild   life   (to   say  nothing  of  30 
the   fact    that    they    were   of   opposite    sides   in    politics),    Richardson 
was   one   of  his   earliest   and   kindest   friends.     Yet   Johnson   too    (as 
Boswell  tells  us)  read  Amelia  through  without  stopping. 


HOGARTH,   SMOLLETT,  AND    FIELDING    239 

Earls  of  Denbigh,  who  drew  their  origin  from  the 
Counts  of  Hapsburgh.  The  successors  of  Charles 
V.  may  disdain  their  brethren  of  England,  but  the 
romance  of  '  Tom  Jones,'  that  exquisite  picture  of 
5  humour  and  manners,  will  outlive  the  palace  of  the 
Escurial  and  the  Imperial  Eagle  of  Austria." 

There  can  be  no  gainsaying  the  sentence  of  this 
great  judge.  To  have  your  name  mentioned  by 
Gibbon,  is  like  having  it  written  on  the  dome  of 

10  St.  Peter's.  Pilgrims  from  all  the  world  admire 
and  behold  it. 

As  a  picture  of  manners,  the  novel  of  "  Tom 
Jones  "  is  indeed  exquisite:  as  a  work  of  construc- 
tion, quite  a  wonder:    the  by-play  of  wisdom;    the 

15  power  of  observation;  the  multiplied  felicitous 
turns  and  thoughts;  the  varied  character  of  the 
great  Comic  Epic:  keep  the  reader  in  a  perpetual 
admiration  and  curiosity.*  But  against  Mr. 
Thomas  Jones  himself  we  have  a  right  to  put  in  a 

20  protest,   and   quarrel  with   the   esteem   the   author 

*  "  Manners  change  from  generation  to  generation,  and  with  man- 
ners morals  appear  to  change — actually  change  with  some,  but  appear 
to  change  with  all  but  the  abandoned.  A  young  man  of  the  present 
day  who  should  act  as  Tom  Jones  is  supposed  to  act  at  Upton,  with 

25  Lady  Bellaston,  &c.,  would  not  be  a  Tom  Jones;  and  a  Tom  Jones 
of  the  present  day,  without  perhaps  being  in  the  ground  a  better 
man,  would  have  perished  rather  than  submit  to  be  kept  by  a  harri- 
dan of  fortune.  Therefore,  this  novel  is,  and  indeed  pretends  to  be, 
no  example  of  conduct.     But,   notwithstanding  all  this,   I   do   loathe 

30  the  cant  which  can  recommend  Pamela  and  Cla/'issa  Harlotvc  as 
strictly  moral,  although  they  poison  the  imagination  of  the  young 
with  continued  doses  of  tinct.  lyttcr,  while  Tom  Jones  is  prohibited  as 
loose.  I  do  not  speak  of  young  women;  but  a  young  man  whose 
heart  or  feelings  can  be  injured,  or  even  his  passions  excited  by  this 

35  novel,  is  already  thoroughly  corrupt.  There  is  a  cheerful,  sunshiny, 
breezy  spirit,  that  prevails  everywhere,  strongly  contrasted  with  the 
close,  hot,  day-dreamy  continuity  of  Richardson." — Coleridge. 
Literary  Remains,  vol.  ii.  p.  374. 


240  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

evidently  has  for  that  character.  Charles  Lamb 
says  finely  of  Jones,  that  a  single  hearty  laugh  from 
him  "  clears  the  air  " — but  then  it  is  in  a  certain 
state  of  the  atmosphere.  It  might  clear  the  air 
when  such  personages  as  Blifil  or  Lady  Bellaston  5 
poison  it.  But  I  fear  very  much  that  (except  until 
the  very  last  scene  of  the  story),  when  Mr.  Jones 
enters  Sophia's  drawing-room,  the  pure  air  there 
is  rather  tainted  with  the  young  gentleman's  to- 
bacco-pipe and  punch.  I  can't  say  that  I  think  lo 
Mr.  Jones  a  virtuous  character;  I  can't  say  but 
that  I  think  Fielding's  evident  liking  and  admira- 
tion for  Mr.  Jones  shows  that  the  great  humourist's 
moral  sense  was  blunted  by  his  life,  and  that  here, 
in  Art  and  Ethics,  there  is  a  great  error.  If  it  is  15 
right  to  have  a  hero  whom  we  may  admire,  let  us 
at  least  take  care  that  he  is  admirable:  if,  as  is  the 
plan  of  some  authors  (a  plan  decidedly  against  their 
interests,  be  it  said),  it  is  propounded  that  there 
exists  in  life  no  such  being,  and  therefore  that  in  20 
novels,  the  picture  of  life,  there  should  appear  no 
such  character;  then  Air.  Thomas  Jones  becomes 
an  admissible  person,  and  we  examine  his  defects 
and  good  qualities,  as  we  do  those  of  Parson 
Thwackum,  or  Miss  Seagrim.  But  a  hero  with  a  25 
flawed  reputation;  a  hero  spunging  for  a  guinea; 
a  hero  who  can't  pay  his  landlady,  and  is  obliged 
to  let  his  honour  out  to  hire,  is  absurd,  and  his 
claim  to  heroic  rank  untenable.  I  protest  against 
Mr.  Thomas  Jones  holding  such  rank  at  all.  I  pro-  30 
test  even  against  his  being  considered  a  more  than 
ordinary     young     fellow,     ruddy-cheeked,     broad- 


HOGARTH,  SMOLLETT,  AND    FIELDING   24 1 

shouldered,  and  fond  of  wine  and  pleasure.  He 
would  not  rob  a  church,  but  that  is  all;  and  a 
pretty  long  argument  may  be  debated,  as  to  which 
of  these  old  types — the  spendthrift,  the  hypocrite, 
5 Jones  and  Blifil,  Charles  and  Joseph  Surface — is 
the  worst  member  of  society  and  the  most  deserv- 
ing of  censure.  The  prodigal  Captain  Booth  is  a 
better  man  than  his  predecessor  Mr.  Jones,  in  so 
far  as  he  thinks  much  more  humbly  of  himself  than 

10 Jones  did:  goes. down  on  his  knees,  and  owns  his 
weaknesses,  and  cries  out,  "  Not  for  my  sake,  but 
for  the  sake  of  my  pure  and  sweet  and  beautiful 
wife  Amelia,  I  pray  you,  O  critical  reader,  to  for- 
give me."     That  stern  moralist  regards  him  from 

15  the  bench  (the  judge's  practice  out  of  court  is  not 
here  the  question),  and  says,  "  Captain  Booth,  it 
is  perfectly  true  that  your  life  has  been  dis- 
reputable, and  that  on  many  occasions  you  have 
shown  yourself  to  be  no  better  than  a  scamp — you 

20  have  been  tippling  at  the  tavern,  when  the  kindest 
and  sweetest  lady  in  the  world  has  cooked  your 
little  supper  of  boiled  mutton  and  awaited  you  all 
the  night;  you  have  spoilt  the  little  dish  of  boiled 
mutton  thereby,  and  caused  pangs   and   pains   to 

25  Amelia's  tender  heart.*     You  have  got  into  debt 

•  "  Nor  was  she  (Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu)  a  stranger  to  that 
beloved  first  wife,  whose  picture  he  drew  '■  his  '  Amelia,'  when,  as 
she  said,  even  the  glowing  language  he  knew  how  to  employ  did 
not   do   more   than   justice   to   the   amiable   qualities   of   the   original, 

30  or  to  her  beauty,  although  this  had  suffered  a  little  from  the  accident 
related  in  the  novel — a  frightful  overturn,  which  destroyed  the  gristle 
of  her  nose.     He  loved  her  passionately,  and  she  returned  his  affec- 
tion. .  .  . 
"  His  biographers  seem  to  have  been  shy  of  disclosing  that,  after 

35  the  death  of  this  charming  woman,   he  married  her   maid.     And  yet 


242  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

without  the  means  of  paying  it.  You  have  gambled 
the  money  with  which  you  ought  to  hiave  paid  your 
rent.  You  have  spent  in  drink  or  in  worse  amuse- 
ments the  sums  which  your  poor  wife  has  raised 
upon  her  httle  home  treasures,  her  own  ornaments,  5 
and  the  toys  of  her  children.  But,  you  rascal !  you 
own  humbly  that  you  are  no  better  than  you  should 
be ;  you  never  for  one  moment  pretend  that  you  are 
anything  but  a  miserable  weak-minded  rogue.  You 
do  in  your  heart  adore  that  angelic  woman  yourio 
wife,  and  for  her  sake,  sirrah,  you  shall  have  your 
discharge.  Lucky  for  you,  and  for  others  like  you, 
that  in  spite  of  your  failings  and  imperfections,  pure 
hearts  pity  and  love  you.  For  your  wife's  sake  you 
are  permitted  to  go  hence  without  a  remand;  and  15 
I  beg  you,  by  the  way,  to  carry  to  that  angelical 
lady  the  expression  of  the  cordial  respect  and  ad- 

the  act  was  not   so   discreditable  to   his   character  as   it   may   sound. 
The  maid  had  few  personal   charms,   but   was   an   excellent   creature, 
devotedly  attached  to  her  mistress,  and  almost  broken-hearted  for  her  20 
loss.      In    the   first    agonies    of   his    own    grief,    which    approached    t6 
frenzy,   he   found   no   relief  but   from    weeping   along  with   her;     nor 
solace  when  a  degree  calmer,  but  in  talking  to  her  of  the  angel  they 
mutually   regretted.     This   made    her    his    habitual    confidential    asso- 
ciate,  and  in   process  of  time  he  began  to  think  he   could   not  give  2$ 
his  children  a  tenderer  mother,  or  secure  for  himself  a  more  faithful 
housekeeper  and  nurse.     At  least,  this  was  what  he  told  his  friends; 
and  it  is  certain  that  her  conduct  as  his  wife  confirmed  it,  and  fully 
justified  his  good  opinion." — Letters  and  Works  of  Lady  Mary  Wortlcv 
Montagu.     Edited  by  Lord  Wharncliffe.    Introductory  Anecdotes,  vol.  i.  3'^ 
pp.  80,  81. 

Fielding's  first  wife  was  Miss  Craddock,  a  young  lady  from  Salis- 
bury, with  a  fortune  of  £1500,  whom  he  married  in  1736.  About  the 
same  time  he  succeeded,  himself,  to  an  estate  of  £200  per  annum, 
and  on  the  joint  amount  he  lived  for  some  time  as  a  splendid  coun-  35 
try  gentleman  in  Dorsetshire.  Three  years  brought  him  to  the  end 
of  his  fortune;  when  he  returned  to  London,  and  became  a  theatri- 
cal manager.  [Recent  researches  have  not  confirmed  the  report  as 
to  the  "  estate  of  £200  a  year  ";  nor  can  he  have  spent  three  years 
in  the  country.]  4*^ 


HOGARTH,   SMOLLETT,  AND    FIELDING    243 

miration  of  this  court."  Amelia  pleads  for  her  hus- 
band, Will  Booth:  Amelia  pleads  for  her  reckless 
kindly  old  father,  Harry  Fielding.  To  have  invented 
that  character  is  not  only  a  triumph  of  art,  but  it  is 
5  a  good  action.  They  say  it  was  in  his  own  home 
that  Fielding  knew  her  and  loved  her:  and  from 
his  own  wife  that  he  drew  the  most  charming  char- 
acter in  English  fiction.  Fiction!  why  fiction?  why 
not  history?     I  know  Amelia  just  as  well  as  Lady 

10  Mary  Wortley  Montagu.  I  believe  in  Colonel 
Bath  almost  as  much  as  in  Colonel  Gardiner  or  the 
Duke  of  Cumberland.  I  admire  the  author  of 
"  Amelia,"  and  thank  the  kind  master  who  intro- 
duced me  to  that  sweet  and  delightful  companion 

15  and  friend.  "Amelia"  perhaps  is  not  a  better 
story  than  "  Tom  Jones,"  but  it  has  the  better 
ethics;  the  prodigal  repents,  at  least,  before  for- 
giveness— whereas  that  odious  broad-backed  Mr. 
Jones  carries  off  his  beauty  with  scarce  an  interval 

20  of  remorse  for  his  manifold  errors  and  short- 
comings; and  is  not  half  punished  enough  before 
the  great  prize  of  fortune  and  love  falls  to  his  share. 
I  am  angry  with  Jones.  Too  much  of  the  plum- 
cake    and  rewards  of  life  fall  to   that  boisterous, 

25  swaggering  young  scapegrace.  Sophia  actually 
surrenders  without  a  proper  sense  of  decorum;  the 
fond,  foolish  palpitating  little  creature! — "  Indeed, 
Mr.  Jones,"  she  says, — "  it  rests  with  you  to  ap- 
point the  day."     I  suppose  Sophia  is  drawn  from 

30 life  as  well  as  Amelia;  and  many  a  young  fellow, 
no  better  than  Mr.  Thomas  Jones,  has  carried  by  a 


244  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

coup  dc  main  the  heart  of  many  a  kind  girl  who  was 
a  great  deal  too  good  for  him. 

What  a  wonderful  art!     What  an  admirable  gift 
of  nature  was  it  by  which  the  author  of  these  tales 
was  endowed,  and  w'hich  enabled  him  to  fix  our  in-   5 
terest,  to  waken  our  sympathy,  to  seize  upon  our 
credulity,  so  that  we  believe  in  his  people — specu- 
late gravely  upon  their  faults  or  their  excellences, 
prefer  this  one  or  that,  deplore  Jones's  fondness  for 
play    and    drink.    Booth's    fondness    for    play    and  lo 
drink,  and  the  unfortunate  position  of  the  wives  of 
both  gentlemen — love  and  admire  those  ladies  with 
all  our  hearts,  and  talk  about  them  as  faithfully  as 
if  we  had  breakfasted  with  them  this  morning  in 
their  actual  drawing-rooms,  or  should  meet  them  15 
this  afternoon  in  the  Park!     What  a  genius!    what 
a  vigour!    wdiat  a  bright-eyed  intelligence  and  ob- 
servation!   w^hat  a  wholesome  hatred  for  meanness 
and  knavery !  what  a  vast  sympathy !   what  a  cheer- 
fulness!  what  a  manly  relish  of  life!   what  a  love  of  20 
human    kind!     wdiat    a    poet    is    here! — watching, 
meditating,  brooding,  creating!     What  multitudes 
cf  truths  has  that  man  left  behind  him!   What  gen- 
erations he  has  taught  to  laugh  wisely  and  fairly! 
What  scholars  he  has  formed  and  accustomed  to  25 
the  exercise  of  thoughtful  humour  and  the  manly 
play  of  wit!     WHiat    a    courage  he  had!     W'hat  a 
dauntless    and    constant    cheerfulness    of    intellect, 
that    burned    bright    and    steady    through    all    the 
storms  of  his  life,  and  never  deserted  its  last  wreck!  30 
It  is  wonderful  to  think  of  the  pains  and  misery 
\vhich  the  man  suffered;   the  pressure  of  want,  ill- 


HOGARTH,  SMOLLETT,  AND    FIELDING    245 

ness,  remorse  which  he  endured !  and  that  the  writer 
was  neither  mahgnant  nor  nielancholy,  his  view  of 
truth  never  warped,  and  his  generous  human  kind- 
ness never  surrendered.* 

e  *  In  the  Goillcnian's  Magasine  for  1786,  an  anecdote  is  related  of 
Harry  Fielding,  "  in  whom,"  says  the  correspondent,  "  good-nature 
and  philanthropy  in  their  extreme  degree  were  known  to  be  the  promi- 
nent features."  It  seems  that  "  some  parochial  taxes  "  for  his  house 
in  Beaufort  Buildings  had  long  been  demanded  by  the  collector. 
10  "  At  last,  Harry  went  off  to  Johnson,  and  obtained  by  a  process 
of  literary  mortgage  the  needful  sum.  He  was  returning  with  it, 
when  he  met  an  old  college  chum  whom  he  had  not  seen  for  many 
years.  He  asked  the  chum  to  dinner  with  him  at  a  neighbouring 
tavern;  and  learning  that  he  was  in  difficulties,  emptied  the  con- 
15  tents  of  his  pocket  into  his.  On  returning  home  he  was  informed 
that  the  collector  had  been  twice  for  the  money.  '  Friendship  has 
called  for  the  money  and  ha4  it,'  said  Fielding;  '  let  the  collector 
call  again.'  " 

It  is  elsewhere  told  of  him,  that  being  in  company  with  the   Earl 

20  of  Denbigh,   his  kinsman,  and  the   conversation   turning   upon  their 

relationship,    the    Earl    asked    him    how    it    was    that    he    spelled    his 

name  "  Fielding,"  and  not  "  Feilding,"  like  the  head  of  the  house  ? 

"  I   cannot  tell,   my   Lord,"   said  he,   "  except   it  be  that   my   branch 

of  the  family  were  the  first  that  knew  how  to  spell." 

25       In    1748,   he   was   made  Justice   of  the   Peace   for   Westminster   and 

Middlesex,   an   office   then   paid  by   fees   and   very   laborious,   without 

being   particularly  reputable.     It  may  be   seen  from  his  own   words, 

in  the  Introduction  to  the   "  Voyage,"   what  kind  of  work  devolved 

upon  Him,  and  in'  what  a  state  he  was  during  these  last  years;    and 

30  still  more  clearly,  how  he  comported  himself  through  all. 

"  Whilst  I  was  preparing  for  my  journey,  and  when  I  was  almost 
fatigued  to  death  with  several  long  examinations,  relating  to  five 
different  murders,  all  committed  within  the  space  of  a  week,  by 
different  gangs  of  street-robbers,  I  received  a  message  from  his 
35  Grace  the  Duke  of  Newcastle,  by  Mr.  Carrington,  the  King's  mes- 
senger, to  attend  his  Grace  the  ne.xt  morning  in  Lincoln's  Inn 
Fields,  upon  some  business  of  importance:  but  I  excused  myself 
from  complying  with  the  message,  as,  besides  being  lame,  I  was 
very  ill  with  the  great  fatigues  I  had  lately  undergone,  added  to  my 
40  distemper. 

"  His  Grace,  however,  sent  Mr.  Carrington  the  very  next  morning 
with  another  summons,  with  which,  though  in  the  utmost  distress,  I 
immediately  complied;  but  the  Duke  happening,  unfortunately  for 
me,  to  be  then  particularly  engaged,  after  I  had  waited  some  time, 
45  sent  a  gentleman  to  discourse  with  me  on  the  best  plan  which  could 
be  invented  for  these  murders  and  robberies,  which  were  every  day 
committed   in   the   streets;     upon   which   I   promised   to   transmit  my 


246 


ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 


In  the  quarrel  mentioned  before,  which  happened 
on  Fielding's  last  voyage  to  Lisbon,  and  when  the 
stout  captain  of  the  ship  fell  down  on  his  knees, 
and  asked  the  sick  man's  pardon — "  I  did  not  suf- 
fer," Fielding  says,  in  his  hearty,  manly  way,  his  5 
eyes  lighting  up  as  it  were  with  their  old  lire — 
"  I  did  not  suffer  a  brave  man  and  an  old  man  to 
remain  a  moment  in  that  posture,  but  immediately 
forgave  him."   Indeed,  I  think,  with  his  noble  spirit 

opinion  in  writing  to  his  Grace,  who,  as  the  gentleman  informed  me,  lo 
intended  to  lay  it  before  the  Privy  Council. 

"  Though  this  visit  cost  me  a  severe  cold,  I,  notwithstanding, 
set  myself  down  to  work,  and  in  about  four  days  sent  the  Duke  as 
regular  a  plan  as  I  could  form,  with  all  the  reasons  and  arguments 
I  could  bring  to  support  it,  drawn  out  on  several  sheets  of  paper;  15 
and  soon  received  a  message  from  the  Duke,  by  IMr.  Carrington, 
acquainting  me  that  my  plan  was  highly  approved  of,  and  that  all 
the  terms  of  it  would  be  complied  with. 

"  The  principal  and  most  material  of  these  terms  was  the  im- 
mediately depositing  £600  in  my  hands;  at  which  small  charge  I  20 
undertook  to  demolish  the  then  reigning  gangs,  and  to  put  the 
civil  policy  into  such  order,  that  no  such  gangs  should  ever  be  able 
for  the  future  to  form  themselves  into  bodies,  or  at  least  to  remain 
any  time  formidable  to  the  public. 

"  I  had  delayed  my  Bath  journey  for  some  time,  contrary  to  the  25 
repeated  advice  of  my  physical  acquaintances  and.  the  ardent  desire 
of  my  warmest  friends,  though  my  distemper  was  now  turned  to  a 
deep  jaundice;  in  which  case  the  Bath  waters  are  generally  reputed 
to  be  almost  infallible.  But  I  had  the  most  eager  desire  to  demolish 
this  gang  of  villains  and  cut-throats.  ...  3*^ 

"  After  some  weeks  the  money  was  paid  at  the  Treastiry,  and 
within  a  few  days  after  £200  of  it  had  come  into  my  hands,  the  whole 
gang  of  cut-throats  was  entirely  dispersed.  ..." 

Further  on,  he  says — 

"  I  will  confess  that  my  private  affairs  at  the  beginning  of  the  35 
winter  had  but  a  gloomy  aspect;  for  I  had  not  plundered  the  public 
or  the  poor  of  those  sums  which  men,  who  are  always  ready  to 
plunder  both  as  much  as  they  can,  have  been  pleased  to  suspect  me 
of  taking;  on  the  contrary,  by  composing,  instead  of  inflaming,  the 
quarrels  of  porters  and  beggars  (which  1  blush  when  I  say  hath  40 
not  been  universally  practised),  and  by  refusing  to  take  a  shilling 
from  a  man  who  most  undoubtedly  would  not  have  had  another  left, 
I  had  reduced  an  income  of  about  £500  a  year  of  the  dirtiest  money 
upon  earth  to  little  more  than  £300,  a  considerable  portion  of  which 
remained  with  my  clerk."  45 


HOGARTH,  SMOLLETT,   AND    FIELDING    247 

and  unconquerable  generosity,  Fielding  reminds 
one  of  those  brave  men  of  whom  one  reads  in 
stories  of  English  shipwrecks  and  disasters — of  the 
ofificer   on    the   African    shore,    when    disease    had 

5  destroyed  the  crew,  and  he  himself  is  seized  by 
fever,  who  throws  the  lead  with  a  death-stricken 
hand,  takes  the  surroundings,  carries  the  ship  out 
of  the  river  or  ofif  the  dangerous  coast,  and  dies 
in  the  manly  endeavour — of  tlie  wounded  captain, 

10  when  the  vessel  founders,  who  never  loses  his  heart, 
who  eyes  the  danger  steadily,  and  has  a  cheery 
word  for  all,  until  the  inevitable  fate  overwhelms 
him,  and  the  gallant  ship  goes  down.  Such  a  brave 
and  gentle  heart,  such  an  intrepid  and  courageous 

15  spirit,  I  love  to  recognise  in  the  manly,  the  English 
Harry  Fielding. 


Sterne  an&  aol^smitF) 

Roger  Sterne,  Sterne's  father,  was  the  second 
son  of  a  numerous  race,  descendants  of  Richard 
Sterne,  Archbishop  of  York,  in  the  reign  of  Charles 
IL ;  *  and  children  •  of  Simon  Sterne  and  Mary  5 
Jaques,  his  wife,  heiress  of  Elvington,  near  York.f 
Roger  was  an  ensign  in  Colonel  Hans  Hamilton's 
regiment,  and  engaged  in  Flanders  in  Queen  Anne's 
wars.f  He  married  the  daughter  of  a  noted  sutler. 
"  N.B.,  he  was  m  debt  to  him,"  his  son  writes,  lo 
pursuing  the  paternal  biography — and  marched 
through  the  world  with  his  companion;  she  fol- 
lowing the  regiment  and  bringing  many  children  to 
poor  Roger  Sterne.  The  Captain  was  an  irascible 
but  kind  and  simple  little  man,  Sterne  says,  and  he  15 
informs  us  that  his  sire  was  run  through  the  body 
at  Gibraltar,  by  a  brother  ofBcer,  in  a  duel  which 
arose  out  of  a  dispute  about  a  goose.  Roger  never 
entirely  recovered  from  the  effects  of  this  rencontre, 

*  [1664  to  1683.]  20 

t  He  came  of  a  Suffolk  family — one  of  whom  settled  in  Not- 
tinghamshire. The  famous  "  starling "  was  actually  the  family 
crest. 

X  [He    was    appointed    ensign    about    1710.      The    regiment    became 
Colonel    Chudleigh's    in    1711,    and    afterwards    the    34th    Foot.      He  ~l 
did  not  become  lieutenant  till  late  in  life.] 

24S 


STERNE  AND    GOLDSMITH  249 

but  died  presently  at  Jamaica,*  whither  he  had  fol- 
lowed the  drum. 

Laurence,  his  second  child,  was  born  at  Clonmel, 
in  Ireland,  in  1713,  and  travelled  for  the  first  ten 
5  years  of  his  life,  on  hi-s  father's  march,  from  bar- 
rack to  transport,  from  Ireland  to  England. f 

One  relative  of  his  UiOther's  took  her  and  her 
family  under  shelter  for  ten  months  at  Mullingar; 
another  collateral  descendant  of  the  Archbishop's 

10  housed  them  for  a  year  at  his  castle  near  Carrick- 
fergus.  Larry  Sterne  was  put  to  school  at  Halifax 
in  England,  finally  was  adopted  by  his  kinsman 
of  Elvington,  and  parted  company  with  his  father, 
the  Captain,  who  marched  on  his  path  of  life  till  he 

15  met  the  fatal  goose  which  closed  his  career.  The 
most  picturesque  and  delightful  parts  of  Laurence 
Sterne's  writings  we  owe  to  his  recollections  of  the 
military  life.  Trim's  montero  cap,  and  Le  Fevre's 
sword,    and    dear    Uncle    Toby's    roquelaure    are 

20  doubtless  reminiscences  of  the  boy,  who  had  lived 
with  the  followers  of  William  and  Marlborough, 
and'had  beat  time  witlr  his  little  feet  to  the  fifes  of 
Ramillies  in  Dublin  barrack-yard,  or  played  with 
the  torn  flags  and  halberds  of  Malplaquet  on  the 

25  parade-ground  at  Clonmel. 

Laurence  remained  at  Halifax  school  till  he  was 
eighteen  years  old.  His  wit  and  cleverness  appear 
to  have  acquired  the  respect  of  his  master  here; 

*  [March  1731.] 
30  t  "  It  was  in  this  parish  (of  Animo,  in  Wicklow),  during  our  stay, 
that  I  liad  that  wonderful  escape  in  falling  through  a  mill-race, 
whilst  the  mill  was  going,  and  of  being  taken  up  unhurt:  the  story- 
is  incredible,  but  known  for  truth  in  all  that  part  of  Ireland,  where 
hundreds  of  the  common  people  flocked  to  see  me." — Sterne. 


250  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

for  when  the  usher  whipped  Laurence  for  writing 
his  name  on  the  newly  whitewashed  schoolroom 
ceiling-,  the  pedagogue  in  chief  rebuked  the  under- 
strapper, and  said  that  the  name  should  never  be 
effaced,  for  Sterne  was  a  boy  of  genius,  and  would  ^ 
ccwiie  to  preferment. 

His  cousin,  the  Squire  of  Elvington,  sent  Sterne 
to  Jesus  College,  Cambridge,  where  he  remained 
some  years,*  and,  taking  orders,  got,  through  his 
uncle's  interest,  the  living  of  Sutton  and  a  pre- 1° 
bendal  stall  at  York.f  Through  his  wife's  con- 
nections he  got  the  fiving  of  Stillington.  He  mar- 
ried her  in  1741,  having  ardently  courted  the  young 
lady  for  some  years  previously.  It  was  not  until 
the  young  lady  fancied  herself  dying,  that  she  made '5 
Sterne  acquainted  with  the  extent  of  her  liking  for 
him.  One  evening  when  he  was  sitting  with  her, 
with  an  almost  broken  heart  to  see  her  so  ill  (the 
reverend  Air.  Sterne's  heart  was  a  good  deal  broken 
in  the  course  of  his  life),  she  said — "My  dear 20 
Laurey,  I  never  can  be  yours,  for  I  verily  believe 
I  have  not  long  to  live;  but  I  have  left  you  every 
shilling  of  my  fortune;"  a  generosity  which  over- 
powered Sterne.  She  recovered:  and  so  they  were 
married,  and  grew  heartily  tired  of  each  other  be-  25 
fore  many  years  were  over.  "  Nescio  quid  est 
materia  cum  me,"  Sterne  writes  to  one  of  his  friends 

*  [He  was  admitted  sizar  on  6th  July   1733,  became  an  exhibitioner 
in   1734.  graduated   B.A.  in  1736,  and  M..'\.   1740.] 

t  [Sterne    was    presented    to    Sutton,    where    he    generally    lived    till  30 
1760,    in    1738.      He    became    prebendary    of   York    in    January    1740-41. 
In   1760  he  moved  to   Coxwold,  on  being  presented  to  the   perpetual 
curacy.      He   held    a    stall    at    York,    and    the   three   livings,    Sutton, 
Stillington,  and  Coxwold,  till  his  death.] 


STERNE   AND    GOLDSMITH  2$  I 

(in  dog-Latin,  and  very  sad  dog-Latin  too);  "  sed 
sum  fatigatus  et  segrotus  de  mea  uxore  plus  quam 
unquam :  "  which  means,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  "  I 
don't  know  what  is  the  matter  with  me;  but  I  am 
5  more  tired  and  sick  of  my  wife  than  ever."  * 

This  to  be  sure  was  five-and-twenty  years  f  after 
Laurey  had  been  overcome  by  her  generosity,  and 
she  by  Laurey's  love.  Then  he  wrote  to  her  of  the 
delights  of  marriage,  saying,  "  We  will  be  as  merry 

roand  as  innocent  as  our  first  parents  in  Paradise, 
before  the  arch-fiend  entered  that  indescribable 
scene.  The  kindest  affections  will  have  room  to 
expand  in  our  retirement:  let  the  human  tempest 
and  hurricane  rage  at  a  distance,  the  desolation  is 

15  beyond  the  liorizon  of  peace.  My  L.  has  seen  a 
polyanthus  bl-ow  in  December? — Some  friendly 
wall  has  sheltered  it  from  the  biting  wind.  No 
planetary  influence  shall  reach  us  but  that  which 
presides  and  cherishes  the  sweetest  flowers.     The 

20  gloomy  family  of  care  and  distrust  shall  be  ban- 
ished from  our  dwelling,  guarded  by  thy  kind  and 
tutelar  deity.  We  will  sing  our  choral  songs  of 
gratitude  and  rejoice  to  the  end  of  our  pilgrimage. 
Adieu,  my  L.     Return  to  one  who  languishes  for 

25  *  "  My  wife  returns  to  Toulouse,  and  proposes  to  pass  the  summer 
at  Bagneres.  I,  on  the  contrary,  go  and  visit  my  wife,  the  church, 
in  Yorkshire.  VVe  all  live  the  longer  at  least  the  happier,  for  having 
things  our  own  way;  this  is  my  conjugal  maxim.  I  own  'tis  not 
the  best   of  maxims,   but   I   maintain   'tis   not   the  worst." — Sterne's 

30  Letters:  20th  January  1764.  [His  wife  was  Elizabeth,  only  daughter 
of  Richard  Lumley,  formerly  rector  of  Bedale.  Both  parents  died 
in  her  infancy.] 

t  [This  is  probably  a  mistake.  The  Latin  letter  addressed  to  John 
Hall   Stevenson   is  now  known   to   have  been   written   in    1758.     Mrs. 

35  Sterne  had  a  fit  of  insanity  next  year,  and  was  for  a  time  at  a 
private  asylum  in  York.] 


252  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

thy  society! — As  I  take  up  my  pen,  my  poor  pulse 
quickens,  my  pale  face  glows,  and  tears  are  trick- 
ling down  on  my  paper  as  I  trace  the  word  L." 

And  it  is  about  this  woman,  with  whom  he  finds 
no  fault  but  that  she  bores  him^  that  our  philan-  5 
thropist  writes,  "  Sum  fatigatus  et  segrotus  " — Sum 
iiwrtalifcr  in  amorc  with  somebody  else!  That  fine 
flower  -af-lxjv^-tliat  polyanthus  over  which  Sterne_ 
sni_Y.elied  so  many  tears,  could  not  last  for  a  quar- 
ter^ of  acerrtury !  10 

Or  rather  it  could  not  be  expected  that  a  gentle- 
man with  such  a  fountain  at  command  should  keep 
it  to  arroscr  one  homely  old  lady,  when  a  score  of 
younger  and  prettier  people  might  be  refreshed 
from  the  same  gushing  source.*     It  was  in  Decem-  ig 

•  In  a  collection  of  "  Seven  Letters  by  Sterne  and  his  Friends  " 
(printed  for  private  circulation  in  1844),  is  a  letter  of  M.  Tollot, 
virho  was  in  France  with  Sterne  and  his  family  in  1764.  Here  is  a 
paragraph : — 

"  Nous  arrivames  le  lendemain  a  Montpellier,  oh  nous  trouvames  20 
notre  ami  Mr.  Sterne,  sa  femme,  sa  fille,  Mr.  Huet,  et  quelques 
autres  Anglaises.  J'eus,  je  vous  I'avoue,  beaucoup  de  plaisir  en 
revoyant  le  bon  et  agreable  Tristram.  ...  II  avait  ete  assez  long- 
temps  a  Toulouse,  ou  il  se  serait  amuse  sans  sa  femme,  qui  le 
poursuivit  partout,  et  qui  voulait  etre  de  tout.  Ces  dispositions  25 
dans  cette  bonne  dame  lui  ont  fait  passer  d'assez  mauvais  momens; 
il  supporte  tous  ces  desagremens  avec  une  patience  d'ange." 

About  four  months  after  this  very  characteristic  letter,  Sterne 
wrote  to  the  same  gentleman  to  whom  Tollot  had  written;  and  from 
his  letter  we  may  extract  a  companion  paragraph: —  30 

" All   which   being  premised,   I   have  been  for  eight 

weeks  smitten  with  the  tenderest  passion  that  ever  tender  wight 
underwent.  I  wish,  dear  cousin,  thou  couldst  conceive  (perhaps 
thou  canst  without  my  wishing  it)  how  deliciously  I  cantered  away 
with  it  the  first  month,  two  up,  two  down,  always  upon  my  hanches,  35 
along  the  streets  from  my  hotel  to  hers,  at  first  once — then  twice, 
then  three  times  a  day,  till  at  length  I  was  within  an  ace  of  setting 
up  my  hobby-horse  in  her  stable  for  good  and  all.  I  might  as  well, 
considering  how  the  enemies  of  the  Lord  have  blasphemed  there- 
upon. The  last  three  weeks  we  were  every  hour  upon  the  doleful  40 
ditty    of    parting;     and    thou    may'st    conceive,    dear    cousin,    how    it 


STERNE   AND    GOLDSMITH  253 

ber  1767,  that  the  Reverend  Laurence  Sterne,  the 
famous  Shandean,  the  charming  Yorick,  the  de- 
light of  the  fashionable  world,  the  delicious  divine 
for  whose  sermons  the  whole  polite  world  was  sub- 
5  scribing,*  the  occupier  of  Rabelais's  easy-chair, 
only  fresh  stuffed  and  more  elegant  than  when  in 
possession  of  the  cynical  old  curate  of  Meudon,f 

altered   my   gait   and   air:     for   I    went   and    came    like   any   louden'd 
carl,    and    did    nothing    but   joucr   des   sentimois   with    her    from    sun- 

10  rising  even  to  the  setting  of  the  same;    and  now  she  is  gone  to  the 

south  of   France:    and   to   finish   the   comedic,   I   fell   ill,   and  broke  a 

vessel  in  my  lungs,  and  half  bled  to  death.     Voila  mon  histoire  !  " 

Whether    husband    or    wife    had    most    of    the    "  patience    d'ange  " 

may    be    uncertain;     but    there    can    be    no   doubt    which    needed    it 

15  most  ! 

*  "  '  Tristram  Shandy  '  is  still  a  greater  object  of  admiration,  the 
man  as  well  as  the  book:  one  is  invited  to  dinner,  where  he  dines, 
a  fortnight  before.  As  to  the  volumes  yet  published,  there  is  much 
good  fun  in  them  and  humour  sometimes  hit  and  sometimes  missed. 

20  Have  you  read  his  '  Sermons,'  with  his  own  comick  figure,  from  a 
painting  by  Reynolds,  at  the  head  of  them  ?  They  are  in  the  style 
I  think  most  proper  for  the  pulpit,  and  show  a  strong  imagination 
and  a  sensible  heart;  but  you  see  him  often  tottering  on  the  verge 
of    laughter,    and    ready    to    throw    his    periwig    in    the    face    of    the 

25  audience." — Gray's  Letters:    June  22nd,  1760. 

"  It  having  been  observed  that  there  was  little  hospitality  in 
London — Johnson:  '  Nay,  sir,  any  man  who  has  a  name,  or  who 
has  the  power  of  pleasing,  will  be  very  generally  invited  in  London. 
The  man,   Sterne,   I  have  been  told,  has  had  engagements  for  three 

30  months.'  Goldsmith:  'And  a  very  dull  fellow.'  Johnson:  'Why, 
no,  sir.'  " — Boswell's  Life  of  Johnson. 

"  Her  [Miss  Monckton's]  vivacity  enchanted  the  sage,  and  they 
used  to  talk  together  with  all  imaginable  ease.  A  singular  instance 
happened    one    evening,    when    she    insisted    that    some    of    Sterne's 

35  writings  were  very  pathetic.  Johnson  bluntly  denied  it.  '  I  am 
sure,'  said  she,  '  they  have  affected  me.'  '  Why,'  said  Johnson, 
smiling,  and  rolling  himself  about — '  that  is  because,  dearest,  you're 
a  dunce.'  When  she  some  time  afterwards  mentioned  this  to  him, 
he  said  with   equal  truth  and  politeness,   '  Madam,  if   I   had  thought 

40  so,  I  certainly  should  not  have  said  it.'  " — Ibid. 

t  A  passage  or  two  from  Sterne's  Sermons  may  not  be  without 
interest  here.  Is  not  the  following,  levelled  against  the  cruelties  of 
the  Church  of  Rome,  stamped  with  the  autograph  of  the  author  of 
the  Sentimental  Journey  f — 

4  5       "To   be   convinced   of   this,    go    with    me   for   a    moment    into    the 


254  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

— the  more  than  rival  of  the  Dean  of  Saint  Pat- 
rick's, wrote  the  above-quoted  respectable  letter  to 
his  friend  in  London:    and  it  was  in  April  of  the 

prisons    of   the    Inquisition — behold   religion   with    mercy    and    justice 
chained    down   under   her   feet — there,    sitting    gha.stly   upon    a    black      ,• 
tribunal,    propped    up    with    racks,    and    instruments    of    torment. — 
Hark  ! — what    a    piteous    groan  ! — See    the    melancholy    wretch    who 
uttered    it,   just    brought    forth    to   undergo   the   anguish    of   a   mock- 
trial,  and   endure  the  utmost  pain   that  a  studied   system  of  religious 
cruelty  has  been  able  to  invent.     Behold  this  helpless  victim  delivered  lo 
up  to   his  tormentors.     His  body  so  ivastcd  wi7/i  sorroii'  and  long  con- 
finement, you'll  see  every  nerve  and  muscle  as   it  suffers. — Observe  the 
last    movement    of    that    horrid    engine. — What    convulsions    it    has 
thrown  him  into  !     Consider  the  nature  of  the  posture  in  which  he 
now  lies  stretched. — What  exquisite  torture  he  endures  by  it  ! — 'Tis  15 
all   nature  can  bear. — Good   God  !     see  how  it  keeps  his   weary  soul 
hanging  upon   his   trembling  lips,   willing  to  take   its   leave,   but   not 
suffered  to  depart.     Behold  the  unhappy  wretch  led  back  to  his  cell — ■ 
dragg'd   out  of   it   again   to   meet   the   flames — and   the   insults  in   his 
last  agonies,   which   this   principle — this   principle,   that   there   can   be  20 
religion   without   morality — has   prepared    for   him." — Sermon   27th. 

The  next  extract  is  preached  on  a  text  to  be  found  in  Judges  xix. 
vv.  I,  2,  3,  concerning  a  "  certain  Levite  ": — 

"  Such  a  one  the  Levite  wanted  to  share  his  solitude  and  fill  up 
that  uncomfortable  blank  in  the  heart  in  such  a  situation:  for,  25 
notwithstanding  all  we  meet  with  in  books,  in  many  of  which,  no 
doubt,  there  are  a  good  many  handsome  things  said  upon  the  sweets 
of  retirement,  &c.  .  .  yet  still  '  it  is  not  good  for  man  to  be  alone;  ' 
nor  can  all  which  the  cold-hearted  pedant  stuns  our  ears  with  upon 
the  subject,  ever  give  one  answer  of  satisfaction  to  the  mind;  in  30 
the  midst  of  the  loudest  vauntings  of  philosophy,  nature  will  have 
her  yearnings  for  society  and  friendship;  a  good  heart  wants  some 
object  to  be  kind  to — and  the  best  parts  of  our  blood,  and  the  purest 
of  our  spirits,  suffer  most  under  the  destitution. 

"  Let  the  torpid  monk  seek  Heaven  comfortless  and  alone.  God  35 
speed  him  !  For  my  own  part,  I  fear  I  should  never  so  find  the 
way :  let  me  be  wise  and  religious,  but  let  me  be  Man  ;  wherever  thy 
Providence  places  me,  or  whatever  be  the  road  I  take  to  Thee,  give 
me  some  companion  in  my  journey,  be  it  only  to  remark  to,  '  How 
our  shadows  lengthen  as  our  sun  goes  down  !  ' — to  whom  I  may  40 
say,  '  How  fresh  is  the  face  of  Nature  !  how  sweet  the  flowers  of 
the  field  !    how  delicious  are  these  fruits  !  '  " — Sermon   iS///. 

The  first  of  these  passages  gives  us  another  drawing  of  the  famous 
"  Captive."     The    second    shows    that    the    same    reflection    was    sug- 
gested   to    the    Reverend    Laurence    by    a    text   in   Judges   as   by    the  45 
fille-de-chambre. 

Sterne's  Sermons  were  published  as  those  of  "  Mr.  Yorick." 


STERNE  AND    GOLDSMITH  255 

same  year  that  he  was  pouring  out  his  fond  heart 
to  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Draper,  wife  of  "  Daniel  Draper, 
Esquire,  Councillor  of  Bombay,  and,  in  1775,  chief 
of  the  factory  of  Surat — a  gentleman  very  much  re- 
5  spected  in  that  quarter  of  the  globe."  * 

"  I  got  thy  letter  last  night,  Eliza,"  Sterne  writes, 
"  on  my  return  from  Lord  Bathurst's,  where  I 
dined  " — (the  letter  has  this  merit  in  it,  that  it  con- 
tains a  pleasant  reminiscence  of  better  men  than 

10  Sterne,  and  introduces  us  to  a  portrait  of  a  kind 
old  gentleman) — "  I  got  thy  letter  last  night,  Eliza, 
on  my  return  from  Lord  Bathurst's;  and  where  I 
was  heard — as  I  talked  of  thee  an  hour  without 
intermission — with  so  much  pleasure  and  attention, 

^5  that  the  good  old  Lord  toasted  your  health  three 
dififerent  times;  and  now  he  is  in  his  85th  year, 
says  he  hopes  to  live  long  enough  to  be  introduced 
as  a  friend  to  my  fair  Indian  disciple,  and  to  see  her 
eclipse  all  other  Nabobesses  as  much  in  wealth  as 

20  she  does  already  in  exterior  and,  what  is  far  bet- 
ter "  (for  Sterne  is  nothing  without  his  morality), 
"  in  interior  merit.  This  nobleman  is  an  old  friend 
of  mine.  You  know  he  was  always  the  protector 
of  men  of  wit  and  genius,  and  has  had  those  of  the 

25  last  century,  Addison,  Steele,  Pope,  Swift,  Prior. 
&c.,  always  at  his  table.  The  manner  in  which  his 
notice  began  of  me  was  as  singular  as  it  was  polite. 
He  came  up  to  me  one  day  as  I  was  at  the  Princess 

*  [Mrs.   Draper,   daughter  of  May   Sclater,   of  a   good   west-country 
30  family,  was  married  at  Bombay  in   1758,  when  httle  more  than  four- 
teen.    She  first  met  Sterne  when  on  a  visit  to  England  in  December 
1766.] 


256  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

of  Wales's  Court,  and  said,  '  I  want  to  know  you, 
Mr.  Sterne,  but  it  is  fit  you  also  should  know  who 
it  is  that  wishes  this  pleasure.  You  have  heard 
of  an  old  Lord  Bathurst,  of  whom  your  Popes  and 
Swifts  have  sung  and  spoken  so  much?  I  have  5 
lived  my  life  with  geniuses  of  that  cast;  but  have 
survived  them;  and,  despairing  ever  to  find  their 
equals,  it  is  some  years  since  I  have  shut  up  my 
books  and  closed  my  accounts;  but  you  have 
kindled  a  desire  in  me  of  opening  them  once  more  10 
before  I  die:  which  I  now  do:  so  go  home  and 
dine  with  me.'  This  nobleman.  I  say,  is  a  prodigy, 
for  he  has  all  the  wit  and  promptness  of  a  man  of 
thirty;  a  disposition  to  be  pleased,  and  a  power  to 
please  others,  beyond  whatever  I  knew:  added  to  15 
which  a  man  of  learning,  courtesy,  and  feeling. 

"  He  heard  me  talk  of  thee,  Eliza,  with  uncom- 
mon satisfaction — for  there  was  only  a  third  per- 
son, and  of  sensibility,  with  us:    and  a  most  senti- 
mental afternoon  till  nine  o'clock  have  we  passed!  *  20 
But  thou,  Eliza,  wert  the  star  that  conducted  and 

*  "  I  am  glad  that  you  are  in  love:  'twill  cure  you  at  least  of  the 
spleen,  which  has  a  bad  effect  on  both  man  and  woman.  I  myself 
must  ever  have  some  Dulcinea  in  my  head;  it  harmonises  the  soul; 
and  in  these  cases  I  first  endeavour  to  make  the  lady  believe  so,  25 
or  rather,  I  begin  first  to  make  myself  believe  that  I  am  in  love; 
but   I   carry  on   my   affairs   quite   in   the   French   way,    sentimentally: 

L'amour,'    say    they,    '  n'est    ricn    sans    sentiment.'      Now,    notwith- 
standing   they    make    such    a   pother   about   the   word,    they   have   no 
precise    idea    annexed    to    it.      And    so    much    for    that    same    subject  30 
called  love." — Sternf.'s  Letters:    May  23,   1765. 

"  P.S.—'My  Sentimental  Journey  will  please  Mrs.  J(ames)  and  my 
Lydia  "  [his  daughter,  afterwards  Mrs.  Medalle]— "  I  can  answer 
for  those  two.  It  is  a  subject  which  works  well,  and  suits  the  frame 
of  mind  T  have  been  in  for  some  time  past.  I  told  you  my  design  35 
in  it  was  to  teach  us  to  love  the  world  and  our  fellow-creatures  better 
than  we  do— so  it  runs  most  upon  those  gentler  passions  and  affec- 
tions which  aid  so  much  to  it." — Letters  [1767]. 


STERNE   AND    GOLDSMIlH  257 

enlivened  the  discourse!  And  when  I  talked  not 
of  thee,  still  didst  thou  fill  my  mind,  and  warm 
every  thought  I  uttered,  for  I  am  not  ashamed  to 
acknowledge  I  greatly  miss  thee.  Best  of  all  good 
5  girls ! — the  sufferings  I  have  sustained  all  night  in 
consequence  of  thine,  Eliza,  are  beyond  the  power 
of  words.  .  .  .  And  so  thou  hast  fixed  thy  Bra- 
min's  portrait  over  thy  writing-desk,  and  wilt  con- 
sult it  in  all  doubts  and  diiBculties? — Grateful  and 

10 good  girl!  Yorick  smiles  contentedly  over  all  thou 
dost:  his  picture  does  not  do  justice  to  his  own 
complacency.  I  am  glad  your  shipmates  are 
friendly  beings  "  (Eliza  was  at  Deal,  going  back 
to  the  Councillor  at  Bombay,  and  indeed  it  was 

15  high  time  she  should  be  ofif).  "  You  could  least 
dispense  with  what  is  contrary  to  your  own  nature, 
which  is  soft  and  gentle,  Eliza;  it  would  civilise 
savages — though  pity  were  it  thou  shouldst  be 
tainted  with   the  ofifice.     Write   to  me,  my  child, 

20  thy  delicious  letters.  Let  them  speak  the  easy  care- 
lessness of  a  heart  that  opens  itself  anyhow,  every- 
how.  Such,  Eliza,  I  write  to  thee!  "'  (The  artless 
rogue,  of  course  he  did!)  "And  so  I  should  ever 
love  thee,  most    artlessly,   most   affectionately,    if 

25  Providence  permitted  thy  residence  in  the  same  sec- 
tion of  the  globe:  for  I  am  all  that  honour  and 
afifection  can  make  me  '  Thy  Bramin.'  " 

The  Bramin  continues  addressing  Mrs.  Draper 

until  the  departure  of  the  Earl  of  Chatham  India- 

30  man  from  Deal,  on  the  3rd  of  April  1767.     He  is 

amiably  anxious  about  the  fresh  paint  for  Eliza's 


258  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

cabin;  he  is  uncommonly  solicitous  about  her  com- 
panions on  board: — 

"  I  fear  the  best  of  your  shipmates  are  only  gen- 
teel by  comparison  with  the  contrasted  crew  with 
which  thou  beholdest  them.     So  was — you  know    5 
who — from  the  same  fallacy  which  was  put  upon 
your  judgment  when — but  I  will  not  mortify  you!  " 

"  You  know  who  "  was,  of  course,  Daniel  Dra- 
per, Esquire,  of  Bombay — a  gentleman  very  much 
respected  in  that  quarter  of  the  globe,  and  about  10 
whose  probable  health  our  worthy  Bramin  writes 
with  delightful  candour: — 

"  I  honour  you,  Eliza,  for  keeping  secret  some 
things  which,  if  explained,  had  been  a  panegyric 
on  yourself.    There  is  a  dignity  in  venerable  afflic-  ^5 
tion  which  will  not  allow  it  to  appeal  to  the  world 
for  pity  or  redress.    Well  have  you  supported  that 
character,    my    amiable,    my    philosophic    friend! 
And,  indeed,  I  begin  to  think  you  have  as  many 
virtues  as  my  Uncle  Toby's  widow.     Talking  of  20 
widows — pray,  Eliza,  if  ever  you  are  such,  do  not 
think  of  giving  yourself  to  some  wealthy  Nabob, 
because  I  design  to  marry  you  myself.     My  wife 
cannot    live  long,  and  I  know  not  the  woman  I 
should  like  so  well  for  her  substitute  as  yourself.  25 
'Tis  true  I  am  ninety-five  in  constitution,  and  you 
but  twenty-five;    but  what  I  want  in  youth,  I  will 
make  up  in  wit  and  good-humour.     Not  Swift  so 
loved  his  Stella,  Scarron  his  Maintenon,  or  Waller 
his  Saccharissa.     Tell  me,  in  answer  to  this,  that  -o 
you  approve  and  honour  the  proposal." 


STERNE   AND    GOLDSMITH  259 

Approve  and  lionour  the-^iropasall— Hie.xoward      -       ^ 
was  writiiigi-gay  letters  to  his  friends  .this  wliile,  -^ 

with  sneering  ahusions  to  this  poor  foohsh  Brauiinc.        'S  v* 
Her  ship  was  not  out  of  the  Downs  and  the  charm-         ^*  ^ 
5  ing  Sterne  was  at  the  "  Mount  Coffee-house,"  with         S  r 
a   sheet  of  gih-edged   paper  before  him,   offering  f 

that  precious  treasure  his  heart  to  Lady  P ,*        ^^    ' 

asking  whether  it  gave  her  pleasure  to  see  him  un-        ^    ^ 
happy?    whether  it  added  to  her  triumph  that  lier  '  '-^ 

10 eyes  and  lips  had  turned  a  man  into  a  fool? — quot-         ^ 
ing  the  Lord's  Prayer,  with  a  horrible  baseness  o'f         '^  ^, 
blaspkeiDy,  as  a  proof  that  lie  had  desired  not  to  be         ^  ^ 
led  into  temptalion;^_,aiid_s wearing  hi_ra.self  the  most        ^\   J 
tender  and  sincere  fool  in  thje_-W.DLdd.     It  was  from         ^^ 

15  his  home  at  CoxwdlcTthat  he  wrote  the  Latin  Let-     y  ai" 
ter,  which,  I  suppose,  he  was  ashamed  to  put  into 
English.     I   find  in  my  copy  of  the   Letters  that 
there   is  a  note  of,   I   can't   call   it  admiration,   at 
Letter   112,   which   seems   to  announce  that  there 

20  was  a  No.  3  to  whom  the  wretched  worn-out  old 
scamp  was  paying  his  addresses  ;t  and  the  year 
after,  having  come  back  to  his  lodgings  in  Bond 
Street,  with  his  "  Sentimental  Journey  "  to  launch 
upon  the  town,  eager  as  ever  for  praise  and  pleasure 

25 — as  vain,  as  wicked,  as  witty,  as  false  as  he  had  ever 
been,  death  at  length  seized  the  feeble  wretch,  and 

*  [i.e.  Lady  Percy,  daughter  of  Lord  Bute.] 

t  To  Mrs.  H . 

"Coxwould:    Nov.  ij,  1767. 
30     "  Now  be  a  good  dear  woman,  my  H ,  and  execute  those  com- 
missions  well,   and   when    I    see   you   I   will   give  you   a   kiss — there's 
for  you  !     But  I  have  something  else  for  you  which  I  am  fabricating 
at  a  great  rate,  and  that  is  my  '  Sentimental  Journey,'  which  shall 


26o  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

on  the  i8th  of  March  1768,  that  "  bale  of  cadaver- 
ous goods,"  as  he  calls  his  body,  was  consigned  to 
Pluto.*     In  his  last  letter  there  is  one  sign  of  grace 

make  you  cry  as  much  as  it  has  affected  me,  or  I  will  give  up  the 
business  of  sentimental  writing.  ...  5 

"  I  am  yours,  &c.   &c., 

"  T.  Shandy." 

,  To  the  Earl  of  . 

"  Coxwould:    Nov.  28,  1767. 

"  My  Lord, — 'Tis  with  the  greatest  pleasure  I  take  my  pen  to  10 
thank  your  lordship  for  your  letter  of  inquiry  about  Yorick:  he 
was  worn  out,  both  his  spirits  and  body,  with  the  '  Sentimental 
Journey.'  'Tis  true,  then,  an  author  must  feel  himself,  or  his  reader 
will  not;  but  I  have  torn  my  whole  frame  into  pieces  by  my  feel- 
ings: I  believe  the  brain  stands  as  much  in  need  of  recruiting  as  I5 
the  body.  Therefore  I  shall  set  out  for  town  the  twentieth  of  next 
month,  after  having  recruited  myself  a  week  at  York.  I  might 
indeed  solace  myself  with  my  wife  (who  is  come  from  France) ; 
but,  in  fact,  I  have  long  been  a  sentimental  being,  wha^'ever  your 
lordship  may  think  to  the  contrary."  20 

[From  April  to  August  1767,  Sterne  wrote  a  "  Journal  to  Eliza," 
which  he  called  the  "  Bramine's  Journal,"  and  described  as  a 
"  diary  of  the  miserable  feelings  o'f  a  person  separated  from  a  lady 
for  whose  society  he  languished."  It  has  never  been  printed.  It 
was  bequeathed  to  the  British  Museum  by  Mr.  Thomas  Washbourne  25 
Gibbs,  of  Bath,  who,  in  1851,  showed  it  to  Thackeray  with  a  view  to 
this  lecture.  Thackeray  returned  it  without  using  it,  and  told  the 
owner  that  it  made  him  think  worse  of  Sterne  than  any  of  the  pub- 
lished writings.] 

*  "  In    February    1768,    Laurence    Sterne,    his    frame   exhausted   by  30 
long    debilitating    illness,    expired    at    his    lodgings    in    Bond    Street, 
London.     There  was  something  in  the  manner  of  his  death  singularly 
resembling  the  particulars  detailed  by  Mrs.  Quickly  as  attending  that 
of  Falstaff,  the  compeer  of   Yorick,   for   infinite  jest,    however   unlike 
in    other    particulars.      As   he   lay   on    his   bed   totally   exhausted,    he  35 
complained    that    his    feet    were   cold,    and    requested    the    female    at- 
tendant to   chafe   them.     She   did   so,   and   it   seemed  to   relieve  him. 
He    complained    that    the    cold    came    up    higher;      and    whilst    the 
assistant  was   in   the  act  of  chafing  his   ankles  and  legs,   he  expired 
without  a  groan.     It  was  also  remarkable  that  his  death   took  place  40 
much    in    the    manner    which    he    himself    had    wished;      and    that 
the  last  offices   were  rendered   to   him,  not  in   his  own  house,  or  by 
the  hand  of  kindred  affection,  but  in  an  inn,  and  by  strangers. 

"  We    are    well    acquainted    with    Sterne's    features    and    personal 
appearance,    to    which    he   himself   frequently   alludes.      He   was   taP  -'5 


STERNE  AND    GOLDSMITH 


261 


— the  real  affection  with  which  he  entreats  a  friend 
to  be  a  guardian  to  his  daughter  Lydia-.  All  his 
letters  to  her. are  artless,  kind,  affectionateraiKi  not- 
sentimental;  as  aJiundred  pages  in  his  ...writings 
5  are  beautiful^ and  full,  not  of  surprising  humour 
merely,  but  of  genuine  love  and~  kindness.  A 
''-g^^i^'-lL^^-'^-^-^-^'  is^that  of  a^mj^n  wlip  has 
to^^mg^histearsandlaugh^ 
hi^^persqnaTT'gn^^ana^ 

10  and  feelings  to  marl<et,  towTite__^^m__on^^p^Ier^ 
and'^elTTHem^r^iOTe^^     Does  he  exaggerate  fiTsi 
grief,  so  as  to  get  his  reader's  pity  for  a  false  sen- 
sibility?   feign  indignation,  so    as    to    establish  a  ■ 
character  for  virtue?    elaborate  repartees,  so  that 

15  he  may  pass  for  a  wit?    steal  from  other  authors, 
and  put  down  the  theft  to  the  credit  side  of  his  / 
own  reputation  for  ingenuity  and  learning?    feign  1 
originality?    affect    benevolence    or    misanthropy?  i 
appeal  to  the  gallery  gods  with  claptraps  and  vulgar  1 

20  baits  to  catch  applause? 

How  much  of  the  paint  and  emphasis  is  neces- 
sary for  the  fair  business  of  the  stage,  and  how  much 

and   thin,   with   a   hectic   and   consumptive   appearance." — Sir   Walter 
Scott. 

25  "  It  is  known  that  Sterne  died  in  hired  lodgings,  and  I  have  been 
told  that  his  attendants  robbed  him  even  of  his  gold  sleeve-buttons 
while  he  was  expiring." — Dr.  Ferriar. 

"  He   died   at   No.    41    (now   a   cheesemonger's),   on    the    west   side 
of  Old  Bond  Street." — Handbook  of  London.     [At  Sterne's  death  it  is 

30  said  to  have  been  a  "silk-bag  shop";  it  is  now  Agnew's  Picture 
Gallery.  At  his  death,  John  Crawford  of  Erroll,  who  was  entertain- 
ing some  of  Sterne's  friends,  sent  a  footman  to  James  Macdonald 
to  inquire  after  his  health.  Macdonald,  who  published  memoirs, 
was  sent  to  Sterne's  bedside,  and  heard  the  dying  man   say,   "  Now 

35  it  has  come."  A  few  minutes  later  he  was  dead.  He  was  buried  in 
St.  George's  burial-ground  in  the  Bayswater  Road,  which  has  re- 
cently been  put  in  order.] 


262  EXGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

of  the  rant  and  rouge  is  put  on  for  tlie  vanity  of  the 
actors?   His  audience  trusts  him:  can  he  trust  him- 
self?    How  much  was   deliberate  calculation  and 
imposture — how   much   was   false    sensibility — and 
how  much  true  feeling?     Where  did  the  lie  begin,   5 
and  did  he  know  where?    and  where  did  the  truth 
end  in  the  art  and  scheme  of  this  man  of  genius, 
this  actor,  this  quack?    Some  time  since.  I  was  in 
the  company  of  a  French  actor  who  began  after 
dinner,  and    at    his    own  request,  to  sing  French  lo 
songs  of  the  sort  called  das  chansons  grnviscs,  and 
which  he  performed  admirably,  and  to  the  dissatis- 
faction of  most  persons  present.     Having  finished 
these,  he  commenced  a  sentimental  ballad — it  was 
so  charmingly  sung  that  it  touched    all    persons  i5 
present,  and  especially  the  singer  himself,  whose 
voice  trembled,  whose    eyes    filled  with   emotion, 
and  who  was  snivelling  and  weeping  quite  genuine 
tears  by  the  time  his  own  ditty  was  over.  ,  I  sup- 
pose  Sterne  had  this  artistical  sensibility;    he  used 20 
to  blubber  perpetually  in  his  study,  and  finding  his 
tears  infectious,  and  that  they  brought  him  a  great 
popularity,  he  exercised  the  lucrative  gift  of  weep- 
ing:  he  utilised  it,  and  cried  on  every  occasion.    1 
own  that  I  don't  value  ocrftrpffct  mueh-Jiieu-cheap-Bs 
drijible  of  those  fountains.     He  fa^jcrnes  me-jAdth 
his^perpetltal..  disquiet  and   hjg.  uneasy  appi^a].^to 
my^risibje  or  sejo^imental  facuJlifi;?.     He  is  always 
looking  in  my  face,  watching  his  effect,  uncertain 
whether  I  think  him  an  impostor  or  not;   posture- 30 
making,  coaxing,  and  imploring  me.     "  See  what 
sensibility  I  have — own  now  that  Fm  very  clever — 


STERNE   AND    GOLDSMITH  263 

do  cry  now,  you  can't  resist  this."  The  humour  of 
Swift  _and  ^Rabelais,  \\JiQiruh€.^retend£d..-la_iiic- 
ceed,  poured  fcom.  them  as  naturallv_as^oiig  dpes 
from  a  bird:-„thev  lose  no  manlv  dignity  with  it. 

5  but  laugh  their'Tiearty  great  ,lauglL.XLL^l-Qf  their 
hr2?ir1  ^hfst-  ?<>  n^tnrp  har^f  th^ni  But  this'  man 
— who  can  make  you  laugh,  who  can  make  you 
cry  too — never  lets  his  reader  alone,  or  will  permit 
his  audience  repose:  when  you  are  quiet,  he  fancies 

10  he  must  rouse  you,  and  turns  over  head  and  heels, 
or  sidles  up  and  whispers  a  nasty  story.  The  ma-n 
is  a  great  jester,  not  a  great  humourist.  He  goes 
to  work  systematically  and  of  cold  blood;  paints 
his  face,  puts  on  his  ruff  and  motley  clothes,  and 

15  lays  down  his  carpet  and  tumbles  on  it.^ 

For  instance,  take  the  '"  Sentimental  Journey," 
and  see  in  the  writer  the  deliberate  propensity  to 
make  points  and  seek  applause.  He  gets  to  "  Des- 
sein's  Hotel,"  he  wants  a  carriage  to  travel  to  Paris, 

20  he  goes  to  the  inn-yard,  and  begins  what  the  actors 
call  "  business  "  at  once.  There  is  that  little  car- 
riage (the  dcsobligeante). 

"  Four  months  had  elapsed  since  it  had  finished 
its  career  of  Europe  in  the  corner  of  Monsieur  Des- 

25  sein's  coach-yard,  and  having  sallied  out  thence 
but  a  vamped-up  business  at  first,  though  it  had 
been  twice  taken  to  pieces  on  Mont  Cenis,  it  had 
not  profited  much  by  its  adventures,  but  by  none 
so  little  as  the  standing  so  many  months  unpitied 

30  in  the  corner  of  Monsieur  Dessein's  coach-yard. 
Much,  indeed,  was  not  to  be  said  for  it — but  some- 
thing might — and  when  a  few  words  will  rescue 


264  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

misery  out  of  her  distress,  I  hate  the  man  who  can 
be  a  churl  of  them." 

Lc  tour  est  fait!   Paillasse  has  tumbled!    Paillasse 
has  jumped  over  the  dcsobligcante,  cleared  it,  hood 
:  and  all,  and  bows  to  the  noble  company.     Does    5 
!  anybody  believe  that  this  is  a  real  Sentiment?  that 
j  this  luxury  of  generosity,  this    gallant    rescue  of 
-.   Misery — out  of  an  old  cab,  is  genuine  feeling?     ft 
!  is  as  genuine  as  the  virtuous  oratory  of  Joseph  Sur- 
face wdien  he  begins,   "  The  man  who,"   &c.   &c.,  10 
and  wishes  to  pass  off  for  a  saint  with  his  credulous, 
good-humoured  dupes, 
'u.      Qur  friend  purchases  the  carriage:    after  turn- 
ing that  notorious  old  monk  to  good  account,  and 
effecting   (like   a   soft  and   good-natured   Paillasse  «3 
as  he  was,  and  very  free  with  his  money  when  he 
had   it)   an   exchange   of   snuffboxes   with   the   old 
Franciscan,  jogs  out  of  Calais;    sets  down  in  im- 
mense figures  on  the  credit  side,  of  his  account  the 
sous  he  gives  away  to  the  Montreuil  beggars ;  and,  20 
at  Nampont,  gets  out  of  the  chaise  and  whimpers 
over  that  famous  dead  donkey,  for  which  any  sen- 
timentalist may  cry  who  will.     It  is  agreeably  and 
skilfully  done — that  dead  jackass:    like  Monsieur 
de  Soubise's  cook  on  the  campaign,  Sterne  dresses  25 
it,  and  serves  it  up  quite  tender  and  with  a  very 
piquant  sauce.     But  tears  and  fine  feelings,  and  a 
white    pocket-handkerchief,    and    funeral    sermon, 
and  horses  and  feathers,  and  a  procession  of  mutes, 
and    a    hearse  w^ith  a  dead    donkey  inside!    Psha,  30 
mountebank!     I'll  not  give  thee  one  penny  more 
for  that  trick,  donkev  and  all! 


STERN'S   AND    GOLDSMITH 


265 


This  donkey  had  appeared  once  before  with  sig- 
nal effect.  In  1765,  three  years  before  the  pub- 
lication of  the  "  Sentimental  Journey,"  the  seventh 
and  eighth  volumes  of  "  Tristram  Shandy  "  were 
5  given  to  the  world,  and  the  famous  Lyons^ 
donkey  makes  his  entry  in  those  volumes  (pp.  315,  ■, 
316): 


"  'Twas  by  a  poor  ass,  with  a  couple  of  large 
panniers  at  his  back,  who  had  just  turned  in  to    ■ 

10  collect    eleemosynary    turnip-tops    and     cabbage- 
leaves,  and  stood  dubious,  with  his  two  forefeet  at  | 
the  inside  of  the  threshold,  and  with  his  two  hinder  \ 
feet  -towards  the  street,  as  not  knowing  very  well 
whether  he  was  to  go  in  or  no. 

15  "  Now  'tis  an  animal  (be  in  what  hurry  I  may) 
I  cannot  bear  to  strike:  there  is  a  patient  endur- 
ance of  suffering  wrote  so  unaffectedly  in  his  looks 
and  carriage  which  pleads  so  mightily  for  him,  that 
it  always  disarms  me,  and  to  that  degree  that  I  do 

20 not  like  to  speak  unkindly  to  him:  on  the  contrary, 
meet  him  where  I  will,  whether  in  town  or  country, 
in  cart  or  under  panniers,  whether  in  liberty  or 
bondage,  I  have  ever  something  civil  to  say  to  him 
on  my  part;    and,  as  one  word  begets  another  (if 

25  he  has  as  little  to  do  as  I),  I  generally  fall  into  con- 
versation with  him;  and  surely  never  is  my  imagi- 
nation so  busy  as  in  framing  responses  from  the 
etchings  of  his  countenance;  ;.nd  where  those  carry 
me  not  deep  enough,  in  flying  from  my  own  heart 

30  into  his,  and  seeing  what  is  natural  for  an  ass  to 
think — as  well  as  a  man,  upon  the  occasion.  In 
truth,  it  is  the  only  creature  of  all  the  classes  of 


V 


/Vc 


«o»4 


266  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

beings  below  me  with  whom  I  can  do  this.  .  .  . 
With  an  ass  I  can  commune  for  ever. 

"  '  Come,  Honesty,'  said  I,  seeing  it  was  imprac- 
ticable to  pass  betwixt  him  and  the  gate,  '  art  thou 
for  coming  in  or  going  out? '  5 

"  The  ass  twisted  his  head  round  to  look  up  the 
street. 

"  '  Well!  '  replied  I,  '  we'll  wait  a  minute  for  thy 
driver.' 

"  He   turned   his   head   thoughtfully  about,   and  lo 
looked  wistfully  the  opposite  way. 

"'I  understand  thee  perfectly,'  answered  I:    'if 
thou    takest    a    wrong  step  in  this  affair,  he  will 
cudgel  thee  to  death.    Well !  a  minute  is  but  a  min- 
ute;   and  if  it  saves  a  fellow-creature  a  drubbing,  15 
it  shall  not  be  set  down  as  ill  spent.' 

"  He  was  eating  the  stem  of  an  artichoke  as  this 
discourse  went  on,  and,  in  the  little  peevish  con- 
tentions between  hunger  and  unsavouriness,  had 
dro])ped  it  out  of  his  mouth  half-a-dozen  times,  and  20 
had  picked  it  up  again.  'God  help  thee,  Jack!' 
said  I,  '  thou  hast  a  bitter  breakfast  on't — and  many 
a  bitter  day's  labour,  and  many  a  bitter  blow,  I 
fear,  for  its  wages!  'Tis  all,  all  bitterness  to  thee 
— whatever  life  is  to  others!  And  now  thy  mouth,  25 
if  one  knew  the  truth  of  it,  is  as  bitter,  I  dare  say, 
as  soot '  (for  he  had  cast  aside  the  stem),  '  and  thou 
hast  not  a  friend  perhaps  in  all  this  world  that  will 
I  give  thee  a  macaroon.'  In  saying  this,  I  pulled  out 
a  paper  of  'em,  which  I  had  just  bought,  and  gave  30 
him  one;  and  at  this  moment  that  I  am  telling  it, 
my  heart  smites  me  that  there  was  more  of  pleas- 


L. 


STERNE  AND    GOLDSMITH  26? 

antry  in  the  conceit  of  seeing  hovj  an  ass  would  eat  (  ^ 
a  macaroon  than  of  benevolence  in  giving  him  one,  \  f?i  ^ 
which  presided  in  the  act.  „)  ^  ^! 

"  When  the  ass  had  eaten  his  macaroon,  I  ^  ^ 
5  pressed  him  to  come  in.  The  poor  beast  was  heavy  \  ^\  ^ 
loaded — his  legs  seemed  to  tremble  under  him —  /  >  k 
he  hung  rather  backwards,  and,  as  I  pulled  at  his  1  $  ^ 
halter,  it  broke  in  my  hand.  He  looked  up  pensive  |  ^ 
in  my  face:    '  Don't  thrash  me  with  it;     but  if  you    \    "^^ 

lowill  you  may.'    '  If  I  do,'  said  I,  '  I'll  be  d .'  "        ^ 

A  c-ritic  who  refuses  to  see  in  this  charming  de- 
scription wit,  humour,  pathos,  a  kind  nature  speak- 
ing, and  a  real  sentiment,  must  be  hard  indeed  to 
move  and  to  please.     A  page  or  two  farther  we 

•  5  come  to  a  description  not  less  beautiful — a  land- 
scape and  figures,  deliciously  painted  by  one  who 
had  the  keenest  enjoyment  and  the  most  tremulous 
sensibility: — 

"  'Twas  in  the  road  between  Nismes  and  Lunel, 

2o  where  is  the  best  Muscatto  wine  in  all  France:  the 
sun  was  set,  they  had  done  their  work:  the  nymphs 
had  tied  up  their  hair  afresh,  and  the  swains  were 
preparing  for  a  carousal.  My  mule  made  a  dead 
point.     '  'Tis  the  pipe  and  tambourine,'  said  I — *  I 

25  never  will  argue  a  point  with  one  of  your  family  as 
long  as  I  live;'  so  leaping  ofT  his  back,  and 
kicking  off  one  boot  into  this  ditch  and  t'other 
into  that,  '  I'll  take  a  dance,  said  I,  '  so  stay  you 
here.' 

30  "  A  sunburnt  daughter  of  labour  rose  up  from 
the  group  to  meet  me  as  I  advanced  towards  them; 
her  hair,  which  was  of  a  dark  chestnut  approach- 


268  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

ing  to  a  black,  was  tied  up  in  a  knot,  all  but  a 
single  tress. 

We  want  a  cavalier,"  said  she,  holding  out 
both  her  hands,  as  if  to  offer  them.  '  And  a 
cavalier  you  shall  have,'  said  I,  taking  hold  of  both  5 
of  them.  '  We  could  not  have  done  without  you/ 
said  she,  letting  go  one  hand,  with  self-taught  po- 
liteness, and  leading  me  up  with  the  other. 

"  A  lame  youth,  whom  Apollo  had  recompensed 
with  a  pipe,  and  to  which  he  had  added  a  tam-  ^o 
bourine  of  his  own  accord,  ran  sweetly  over  the  pre- 
lude, as  he  sat  upon  the  bank.  '  Tie  me  up  this 
tress  instantly,'  said  Nannette,  putting  a  piece  of 
string  into  my  hand.  It  taught  me  to  forget  I  was 
a  stranger.  The  whole  knot  fell  down — we  had  '5 
been  seven  years  acquainted.  The  youth  struck 
the  note  upon  the  tambourine,  his  pipe  followed, 
and  ofif  we  bounded. 

"  The  sister  of  the  youth — who  had  stolen  her 
voice    from    heaven — sang    alternately    with     her  20 
brother.     'Twas  a  Gascoigne  roundelay:    *  Viva  la 
joia,    fidon    la    tristcssa.'      The    nymphs    joined    in 
unison,  and  their  swains  an  octave  below  them. 

"  Viz^a  la  joia  was  in  Nannette's  lips,  viva  la  joia 
in  her  eyes.  A  transient  spark  of  amity  shot  across  25 
the  space  betwixt  us.  She  looked  amiable.  Why 
could  I  not  live  and  end  my  days  thus?  'Just 
Disposer  of  our  joys  and  sorrows!  '  cried  I,  'why 
could  not  a  man  sit  down  in  the  lap  of  content  here, 
and  dance,  and  sing,  and  say  his  prayers,  and  go  30 
to  heaven  with  this  nut-brown  maid?'  Capri- 
ciously did  she  bend  her  head   on   one   side,  and 


\ 


STERNE   AND    GOLDSMITH  269 

dance  up  insidious.     '  Then  'tis  time  to  dance  off,' 
quoth  I." 

And  with  this  pretty  dance  and  chorus,  the  vol- 
ume artfully  concludes.  Even  here  one  can't  give 
5  the  whole  description.  There  is  not  a  page  in 
Sterne's  writing  but  has  something  that  were  bet- 
ter away,  a  latent  corruption — a  hint,  as  of  an  im- 
pure presence.* 

Some  of  that  dreary  donbk^cntaidrc  niRv  be  nt-        ^ 
10  tributecLto  freer  tim£s  and  ma.nn&vs,~th.2XL.Xiurs.  but         *^ 

*  "  With  regard  to  Sterne,  and_the  charge  of  licentiousness  which 
presses  sp.'aerjously  upon  his  character  as  a  writer,^,,!— wo.ULld  remark 
that  there. j§,. A.. sorr~of.knowingiLess,  tlie  wit  o£  which  depends,  ist, 
on   tile   modesty   it   gives   pain   to;     or,,  ^ndlx,„ari..  the  Jnporeoce.  and 

15  irujocent  ignorance  over  which  it  triumphs;  cxr,  srdly,  on  a  certain 
oscillation  in.  the  individual's  own  mind  between  the  remaining 
good  and  the. .encroaching  evil  of  his  nature — a  sort  of  dallying  witii 
the  devil — a  fluxionary  art  of  combining  courage  and  cowardice,  as 
wTien  a  man   snuffs  a  candle  with   his   fingers   for   the   fir^t    time,   or 

20  better  still,  perhaps,  like,  that  trembling,  daring  with  which  a  child 
touches  a  hot  tea-virn,  because  it  has  been  forbidden;  so  that  the 
mind  has  its  own  white  and  black  angel;  the  sarhe  or  similar 
amusemehf  as  "may  be  supposed  to  take  place  betwfeen  an  old 
debauchee   and   a  "priide — the   feeling   resentment,   on    the   one'  ff^'d,  ^T" 

25   from  a  prudential  anxiety  to  preserve  appearaiTces  antf  Wv^  a  clTar-         ~\'Ji  . 
acter;    and,  on  the  other,  an  inward  sympathy  with  the  enemy.     We         '  * 

have  only  to  suppose  society  Innocent,   and  then  nine-tenths  of  this        p^\J^ 
sort  of  wit  would  be  like  a  stone  that  falls  in  siiow.  making  no  sound, 
becau,S£-j?xcitin^_n2_resiaLancej„thc_.rem3inder .res,ts,.O.P^  its_ b£ing_an 

30  ofifence  agiunit  the  good  manners  ol.  human  nature   itselT. 

"This  source,' unworthy"  as  it  is.  may  JTouTTtTessnse  combined  with 
wit,  drollery,  fancy,  and  even  humour;  and  we  have  only  to  regret 
the  misalliance;  but  that  the  latter  are  quite  distinct  from  the 
former,  may  be  made  evident  by  abstracting  in  our  imagination  the 

35  morality  of  the  characters  of  Mr.  Shandy,  my  Uncle  Toby,  and  Trim, 
which  are  all  antagonists  to  this  spurious  sort  of  wit,  from  the  rest 
of  '  Tristram  Shandy,'  and  by  supposing,  instead  of  them,  the 
presence  of  two  or  three  callous  debauchees.  The  result  will  be 
pure    disgust.      Sterne    cannot    be    too    severely    censured    for    thus 

40  using  the  best  dispositions  of  our  nature  as  the  panders  and  con- 
diments for  the  basest." — Coleridge.  Literary  Remains,  vol.  i.  pp. 
141,  142.  ■'.—•—«.■».»..■ 


270  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

not  all,  ^^\^_i^1l'  <^afyr\  py^'^  1^^^  ""^  oj-tlie  leaves_ 
constantly:  the  last  words  the  famous  author  wrote 
were  bad  and  wicked — the  last  lines  the  poor 
stricken..wr.ercli..-pennejCwlefe!i:^^ 
I  think  of  these  past  writers  and  of  one  who  lives 
amongst  us  now,  and  am  grateful  for  the  innocent 
laughter  and  the  sweet  and  unsullied  page  which 
the  author  of  "  David  Copperfield  "  gives  to  my 
children. 


"  Jete  sur  cette  boule,  10 

Laid,  chetif  et  souffrant; 
_  Etouffe  dans  la  foule, 
'  Faute  d'etre  assez  grand: 

Une  plainte  touchante 

De  ma  bouche  sortit.  15 

Le  bon  Dieu  me  dit:    Chante, 

Chante,  pauvre  petit  ! 

Chanter  ou  je  m'abuse, 

Est  ma  tache  ici-bas. 

Tous  ceux  qu'ainsi  j 'amuse  20 

Ne  m'aimeront-ils  pas  ?  " 

In  those  charming  lines  of  Beranger,  one  may 
fancy  described  the  career,  the  sufferings,  the 
genius,  the  gentle  nature  of  Goldsmith,  and  the 
esteem  in  which  we  hold  him.  Who,  of  the  mil-  25 
lions  whom  he  has  amused,  doesn't  love  him?  To 
Ge  the  most  beloved  of  English  writers,  what  a 
title  that  is  for  a  man!  *     A  wild  youth,  wayward, 

*  "  He  was  a  friend  to  virtue,  and  in  his  most  playful  pages  never 
forgets  what  is  due  to  it.    A  gentleness,  delicacy,  and  purity  of  feel-  30 
ing    dirrtinguishes    whatever    he    wrote,    and    bears    a    correspondence 
to   the   generosity   of   a   disposition   which   knew   no   bounds   but   his 
last  guinea.  .  .  . 

"  The   admirable   ease   and   grace   of   the   narrative,   as   well    as   the 


STFRXE  AND    COLDSAflTH  2']\ 

but  full  of  tenderness  and  afifection,  quits  the 
country  village,  where  his  boyhood  has  been 
passed  in  happy  musing,  in  idle  shelter,  in  fond 
longing  to  see  the  great  world  out  of  doors,  and 

5  achieve  name  and  fortune:  and  after  years  of  dire 
struggle,  and  neglect  and  poverty,  his  heart  turn- 
ing back  as  fondly  to  his  native  place  as  it  had 
longed  eagerly  for  change  when  sheltered  there,  he 
writes  a  book  and  a  poem,  full  of  the  recollections 

lo  and  feelings  of  home :  he  paints  the  friends  and 
scenes  of  his  youth,  and  peoples  Auburn  and  Wake- 
field with  remembrances  of  Lissoy.  Wander  he 
must,  but  he  carries  away  a  home-relic  with  him, 
and  dies  with  it  on  his  breast.    His  nature  is  truant; 

15  in  repose  it  longs  for  change:  as  on  the  journey 
it  looks  back  for  friends  and  quiet.  He  passes  to- 
day in  building  an  air-castle  for  to-morrow,  or  in 
writing  yesterday's  elegy;  and  he  would  fly  away 
this  hour,  but  that  a  cage  and  necessity  keep  him. 

20  What  is  the  charm  of  his  verse,  of  his  style,  and 
humour?  His  sweet  regrets,  his  delicate  compas- 
sion, his  soft  smile,  his  tremulous  sympathy,  the 
weakness  which  he  owns?  Your  love  for  him  is 
half  pity.     You  come  hot  and  tired  from  the  day's 

r.5  battle,  and  this  sweet  minstrel  sings  to  you.  Who 
could  harm  the  kind  vagrant  harper?    Whom  did 

pleasing  truth  with  which  the  principal  characters  are  designed,  make 
the    '  Vicar    of    Wakefield  '    one    of    the    most    delicious    morsels    of 
fictitious    composition    on    which    the    human    mind    was    ever    em- 
30  ployed. 

"...  We  read  the  '  Vicar  of  Wakefield  '  in  youth  and  in  age— 
we  return  to  it  again  and  again,  and  bless  the  memory  of  ^n  author 
who  contrives  so  well  to  reconcile  us  to  human  nature." — Sir  Walter 
Scott. 


2/2  ENGLISH  HUMOURIST^ 

he  ever  hurt?  He  carries  no  weapon,  save  the  harp 
on  which  he  plays  to  you;  and  with  which  he  de- 
hghts  great  and  humble,  young  and  old,  the  cap- 
tains in  the  tents,  or  the  soldiers  round  the  fire,  or 
the  women  and  children  in  the  villages,  at  whose  5 
porches  he  stops  and  sings  his  simple  songs  of  love 
and  beauty.  With  that  sweet  story  of  the  "  Vicar 
of  Wakefield"*   he   has   found   entry   into   every 

•  "  Now  Herder  came,"  says  Goethe  in  his  Autobiography,  relat- 
ing his  first  acquaintance  with  Goldsmith's  masterpiece,  "  and  to-  lo 
gether  with  his  great  knowledge  brought  many  other  aids,  and  the 
later  publications  besides.  Among  these  he  announced  to  us  the 
'  Vicar  of  Wakefield  '  as  an  excellent  work,  with  the  German  trans- 
lation of  which  he  would  make  us  acquainted  by  reading  it  aloud 
to  us  himself.  ...  I5 

"  A  Protestant  country  clergyman  is  perhaps  the  most  beautiful 
subject  for  a  modern  idyl;  he  appears  like  Melchizedeck,  as  priest 
and  king  in  one  person.  To  the  most  innocent  situation  which  can 
be  imagined  on  earth,  to  that  of  a  husbandman,  he  is,  for  the  most 
part,  united  by  similarity  of  occupation  as  well  as  by  equality  in  20 
family  relationships;  he  is  a  father,  a  master  of  a  family,  an  agri- 
culturist, and  thus  perfectly  a  member  of  the  community.  On  this 
pure,  beautiful  earthly  foundation  rests  his  higher  calling;  to  him 
is  it  given  to  guide  men  through  life,  to  take  care  of  their  spiritual 
education,  to  bless  them  at  all  the  leading  epochs  of  their  existence,  25 
to  instruct,  to  strengthen,  to  console  them,  and,  if  consolation  is  not 
sufficient  for  the  present,  to  call  up  and  guarantee  the  hope  of  a  hap- 
pier future.  Imagine  such  a  man  with  pure  human  sentiments, 
strong  enough  not  to  deviate  from  them  under  any  circumstances, 
and  by  this  already  elevated  above  the  multitude  of  whom  one  can- 30 
not  expect  purity  and  firmness;  give  him  the  learning  necessary 
for  his  office,  as  well  as  a  cheerful,  equable  activity,  which  is  even 
passionate,  as  it  neglects  no  moment  to  do  good — and  you  will  have 
him  well  endowed.  But  at  the  same  time  add  the  necessary  limi- 
tation, so  that  he  must  not  only  pause  in  a  small  circle,  but  may  also,  35 
perchance,  pass  over  to  a  smaller;  grant  him  good-nature,  placa- 
bility, resolution,  and  everything  else  praiseworthy  that  springs  from 
a  decided  character,  and  over  all  this  a  cheerful  spirit  of  compliance, 
and  a  smiling  toleration  of  his  own  failings  and  those  of  others, — 
then  you  will  have  put  together  pretty  well  the  image  of  our  excel- jo 
lent  Wakefield. 

"  The  delineation  of  this  character  on  his  course  of  life  through 
joys  and.  sorrows,  the  ever-increasing  interest  of  the  story,  by  the 
combination  of  the  entirely  natural  with  the  strange  and  the  sin- 
gular, make  this  novel  one  of  the  best  which  have  ever  been  written;  45 


STEJ^N^  AND    GOLDSMITH  273 

castle  and  ever}-  hamlet  in  Europe.  Not  one  of  us, 
however  busy  or  hard,  but  once  or  twice  in  our 
Hves  has  passed  an  evening  with  him,  and  under- 
gone the  charm  of  his  dehghtful  music. 


5  besides  this,  it  has  the  great  advantage  that  it  is  quite  moral,  nay, 
in  a  pure  sense.  Christian — represents  the  reward  of  a  good-will  and 
perseverance  in  the  right,  strengthens  an  unconditional  confidence 
in  God,  and  attests  the  final  triumph  of  good  over  evil;  and  all 
this  without  a  trace  of  cant  or  pedantry.  The  author  was  preserved 
10  from  both  of  these  by  an  elevation  of  mind  that  shows  itself 
throughout  in  the  form  of  irony,  by  which  this  little  work  must  ap- 
pear to  us  as  wise  as  it  is  amiable.  The  author.  Dr.  Goldsmith, 
has,  without  question,  a  great  insight  into  the  moral  world,  into 
its  strength  and  its  infirmities;    but  at  the  same  time  he  can  thank- 

^5  fully  acknowledge  that  he  is  an  Englishman,  and  reckon  highly 
the  advantages  which  his  country  and  his  nation  afford  him. 
The  family,  with  the  delineation  of  which  he  occupies  himself,  stands 
upon  one  of  the  last  steps  of  citizen  comfort,  and  yet  comes  in 
contact    with    the    highest;     its    narrow    circle,    which    becomes    still 

20  more  contracted,  touches  upon  the  great  world  through  the  natural 

and   civil    course   of   things;     this   little   skiff   floats   on    the   agitated 

waves   of   English   life,   and   in   weal   or  woe  it  has   to   expect   injury 

or  help  from  the  vast  fleet  which  sails  around  it. 

"  I  may  suppose  that  my  readers  know  this  work,  and  have  it  in 

25  memory;     whoever    hears    it   named    for   the    first   time   here,    as   well 

as   he   who   is   induced   to   read    it   again,    will   thank    me." — Goethe. 

Truth  and  Poetry;    from  my  own  Life.     (English   Translation,  vol.   i. 

PP-  378,  379-) 

"  He  seems  from  infancy  to  have  been  compounded  of  two  natures, 

30  one  bright,  the  other  blundering;  or  to  have  had  fairy  gifts  laid 
in  his  cradle  by  the  '  good  people  '  who  haunted  his  birthplace,  the 
old  goblin  mansion  on  the  banks  of  the  Inny.  He  carries  with 
him  the  wayward  elfin  spirit,  if  we  may  so  term  it,  throughout  his 
career.     His  fairy  gifts  are  of  no  avail  at  school,  academy,  or  college: 

35  they  unfit  him  for  close  study  and  practical  science,  and  render 
him  heedless  of  everything  that  does  not  address  itself  to  his  poeti- 
cal imagination  and  genial  and  festive  feelings;  they  dispose  him  to 
break  away  from  restraint,  to  stroll  about  hedges,  green  lanes,  and 
haunted    streams,    to   revel    with   jovial    companions,    or   to    rove   the 

40  country  like  a  gipsy  in  quest  of  odd  adventures.  .  .  .  Though  his 
circumstances  often  compelled  him  to  associate  with  the  poor,  they 
never  could  betray  him  into  companionship  with  the  depraved.  His 
relish  for  humour,  and  for  the  study  of  character,  as  we  have  before 
observed,    brought    him    often    into    convivial    company    of    a    vulgar 

45  kind;  but  he  discriminated  between  their  vulgarity  and  their  amus- 
ing qualities,  or  rather  wrought  from  the  whole  store  familiar  features 


274  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

Goldsmitli's  father  was  no  doubt  the  good  Doc- 
tor Primrose,  whom  we  all  of  us  know.*  Swift 
was  yet  alive,  when  the  little  Oliver  was  born  at 
Pallas,  or  Pallasmore,  in  the  county  of  Longford, 
in  Ireland.  In  1730,  two  years  after  the  child's  5 
birth,  Charles  Goldsmith  removed  his  family  to 
Lissoy,  in  the  county  "vVestmeath,  that  sweet  "  Au- 
burn "  which  every  person  who  hears  me  has  seen 
in  fancy.  Here  the  kind  parson  *  brought  up  his 
eight  children ;  and  loving  all  the  world,  as  his  10 
son  says,  fancied  all  the  world  loved  him.  He  had 
a  crowd  of  poor  dependants  besides  those  hungry 
children.  He  kept  an  open  table;  round  which  sat 
flatterers  and  poor  friends,  w'ho  laughed  at  the 
honest  rector's  many  jokes,  and  ate  the  produce  of  15 

of    life    which    form    the    staple    of    his    most    popular    writings." — 
Washington  Irvhxg. 

*  "  The  family  of  Goldsmith,  Goldsmyth,  or,  as  it  was  occasionally 
written,    Gouldsmith,    is    of    considerable    standing    in    Ireland,    and 
seems    always    to    have    held    a    respectable    station    in    society.      Its'^O 
origin  is  English,  supposed  to  be  derived  from  that  which  was  long 
settled  at   Crayford   in    Kent." — Prior's  Life  of  Goldsmith. 

Oliver's  father,  great-grandfather,  and  great-great-grandfather  were 
clergymen;    and  two  of  them  married  clergymen's  daughters. 

•  "  At  church,  with  meek  and  unaflFected  grace,  25 

His  looks  adorn'd  the  venerable  place; 
Truth  from  his  lips  prevail'd  with   double  sway, 
And  fools  who  came  to  scoflf  remain'd  to  pray. 
The  service  past,   around  the  pious   man. 
With  steady  zeal  each  honest  rustic  ran; 
E'en  children  follow'd  with   endearing  wile. 
And  pluck'd  his  gown  to  share  the  good  man's  smile. 
His  ready  smile  a  parent's  warmth  exprest, 
Their  welfare  pleased  him,  and  their  cares  distrest; 
To  them  his  heart,  his  love,  his  griefs  were  given,  35 

But  all  his  serious  thoughts  had  rest  in  heaven. 
As  some  tall  cliff  that  lifts  its  awful  form. 
Swells  from  the  vale,  and   midway  leaves  the  storm, 
Though  round   its  breast   the   rolling  clouds  are   spread. 
Eternal  sunshine  settles  on  its  head." — The  Deserted  Village.      40 


30 


STEIiNE   AND    GOLDS  All  TH  275 

his  seventy  acres  of  farm.  Those  who  have  seen  an 
Irish  house  in  the  present  day  can  fancy  that  one 
of  Lissoy.  The  old  beggar  still  has  his  allotted 
corner  by  the  kitchen  turf;  the  maimed  old  soldier 
5  still  gets  his  potatoes  and  buttermilk ;  the  poor 
cottier  still  asks  his  honour's  charity,  and  prays 
God  bless  his  reverence  for  the  sixpence;  the 
ragged  pensioner  still  takes  his  place  by  right  and 
sufferance.     There's  still  a  crowd  in  the  kitchen, 

10  and  a  crowd  round  the  parlour  table,  profusion, 
conftision,  kindness,  poverty.  If  an  Irishman  comes 
to  London  to  make  his  fortune,  he  has  a  half-dozen 
of  Irish  dependants  who  take  a  percentage  of  his 
earnings.     The  good  Charles  Goldsmith  *  left  but 

15  little  provision  for  his  hungry  race  when  death  sum- 
moned him;  and  one  of  his  daughters  being  en- 
gaged to  a  Squire  of  rather  superior  dignity, 
Charles  Goldsmith  impoverished  the  rest  of  his 
family  to  provide  the  girl  with  a  dowry. 

20  *  "  In  May  this  year  (1768),  he  lost  his  brother,  the  Rev.  Henry 
Goldsmith,  for  whom  he  had  been  unable  to  obtain  preferment  in 
the   Church.  .  .  . 

"...   To   the   curacy   of   Kilkenny  West,   the   moderate   stipend, of 
which,  forty  pounds  a  year,  is  sufficiently  celebrated  by  his  brother's 

25  lines.  It  has  been  stated  that  Mr.  Goldsmith  added  a  school, 
which,  after  having  been  held  at  more  than  one  place  in  the 
vicinity,  was  finally  fixed  at  Lissoy.  Here  his  talents  and  industry 
gave  it  celebrity,  and  under  his  care  the  sons  of  many  of  the  neigh- 
bouring   gentry    received    their    education.      A    fever    breaking    out 

30  among  the  boys  about  1765,  they  dispersed  for  a  time,  but  re- 
assembling at  Athlone,  he  continued  his  scholastic  labours  there 
until  the  time  of  his  death,  which  happened,  like  that  of  his  brother, 
about  the  forty-fifth  year  of  his  age.  He  was  a  man  of  an  excellent 
heart  and  an  amiable  disposition." — Prior's  Goldsmith. 

35  "  Where'er  I  roam,  whatever  realms  to  see. 

My  heart,  untravell'd,  fondly  turns  to  thee: 
Still  to  my  brother  turns  with  ceaseless  pain. 
And  drags  at  each  remove  a  lengthening  chain." 

— The  Traveller. 


2/6  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

The  smallpox,  which  scourged  all  Europe  at  that 
time,  and  ravaged  the  roses  off  the  cheeks  of  half 
the  world,  fell  foul  of  poor  little  Oliver's  face,  when 
the  child  was  eight  years  old,  and  left  him  scarred 
and  disfigured  for  his  life.  An  old  woman  in  his  5 
father's  village  taught  him  his  letters,  and  pro- 
nounced him  a  dunce:  Paddy  Byrne,  the  hedge- 
schoolmaster,  took  him  in  hand:  and  from  Paddy 
Byrne  he  was  transmitted  to  a  clergyman  at  Elphin. 
When  a  child  was  sent  to  school  in  those  days,  the  lo 
classic  phrase  was  that  he  was  pleaced  under  Mr. 
So-and-so's  ferule.  Poor  little  ancestors!  It  is 
hard  to  think  how  ruthlessly  you  were  birched;  and 
how  much  of  needless  whipping  and  tears  our  small 
forefathers  had  to  undergo!  A  relative — kind  uncle  i5 
Contarine — took  the  main  charge  of  little  Noll; 
who  went  through  his  schooldays  righteously  do- 
ing as  little  w^ork  as  he  could:  robbing  orchards, 
playing  at  ball,  and  making  his  pocket-money  fly 
about  whenever  fortune  sent  it  to  him.  Everybody  20 
knows  the  story  of  that  famous  "  Mistake  of  a 
Night,"  when  the  young  schoolboy,  provided  with 
a  guinea  and  a  nag,  rode  up  to  the  "  best  house  " 
in  Ardagh,  called  for  the  landlord's  company  over 
a  bottle  of  wine  at  supper,  and  for  a  hot  cake  for  25 
breakfast  in  the  morning;  and  found,  when  he 
asked  for  the  bill,  that  the  best  house  was  Squire 
Featherstone's,  and  not  the  inn  for  which  he  mis- 
took it.  Who  does  not  know  every  story  about 
Goldsmith?  That  is  a  delightful  and  fantastic  3c 
picture  of  the  child  dancing  and  capering  about 
in  the  kitchen  at  home,  when  the  old  fiddler  gibed 


STERNE   AND    GOLDSMITH  2'J'J 

at  him  for  his  ughness,  and  called  him  ^sop;  and 
little  Noll  made  his  repartee  of  "  Heralds  proclaim 
aloud  this  saying — See  ^sop  dancing  and  his 
monkey  playing."  One  can  fancy  a  queer  pitiful 
5  look  of  humour  and  appeal  upon  that  little  scarred 
face — the  funny  little  dancing  figure,  the  funny  lit- 
tle brogue.  In  his  life,  and  his  writings,  which  are 
the  honest  expression  of  it,  he  is  constantly  be- 
wailing that  homely  face  and  person;   anon  he  sur- 

lo  veys  them  in  the  glass  ruefully;  and  presently 
assumes  the  most  comical  dignity.  He  likes  to 
deck  out  his  little  person  in  splendour  and  fine 
colours.  He  presented  himself  to  be  examined  for 
ordination  in  a  pair  of  scarlet  breeches,  and  said 

15  honestly  that  he  did  not  like  to  go  into  the  Church, 
because  he  was  fond  of  coloured  clothes.  When  he 
tried  to  practise  as  a  doctor,  he  got  by  hook  or 
by  crook  a  black  velvet  suit,  and  looked  as  big  and 
grand  as  he  could,  and  kept  his  hat  over  a  patch 

20  on  the  old  coat:  in  better  days  he  bloomed  out  in 
plum-colour,  in  blue  silk,  and  in  new  velvet.  For 
some  of  those  splendours  the  heirs  and  assignees 
of  Mr.  Filby,  the  tailor,  have  never  been  paid  to 
this  day:    perhaps  the  kind  tailor  and  his  creditor 

25  have  met  and  settled  their  little  account  in  Hades.* 

They  showed  until  lately  a  window  at  Trinity 

College,t  Dublin,  on  which  the  name  of  O.  Gold- 

*  "  When  Goldsmith  died,  half  the  unpaid  bill  he  owed  to  Mr. 
William  Filby  (amounting  in  all  to  £79)  was  for  clothes  supplied  to 
30  this  nephew  Hodson."— Forster's  Goldsmith,  p.  520. 

As  tliis  nephew  Hodson  ended  his  days  (see  the  same  page) 
"  a  prosperous  Irish  gentleman,"  it  is  not  unreasonable  to  wish 
that  he  had  cleared  off  Mr.   Filby's  bill. 

t  [The  pane  is  still  preserved  in  the  library  of  Trinity  College.] 


278  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

smith  was  engraved  with  a  diamond.  Whose  dia- 
mond was  it?  Not  the  young  sizar's,  who  made 
but  a  poor  figure  in  that  place  of  learning.  He  was 
idle,  penniless,  and  fond  of  pleasure:*  he  learned 
his  way  early  to  the  pawnbroker's  shop.  He  wrote  5 
ballads,  they  say,  for  the  street-singers,  who  paid 
him  a  crown  for  a  poem:  and  his  pleasure  was  to 
steal  out  at  night  and  hear  his  verses  sung.  He 
was  chastised  by  his  tutor  for  giving  a  dance  in  his 
rooms,  and  took  the  box  on  the  ear  so  much  to  10 
heart,  that  he  packed  up  his  all,  pawned  his  books 
and  little  property,  and  disappeared  from  college 
and  family.  He  said  he  intended  to  go  to  America, 
but  when  Lis  money  was  spent,  the  young  prodigal 
came  home  ruefully,  and  the  good  folks  there  15 
killed  their  calf — it  was  but  a  lean  one — and  wel- 
comed him  back. 

After  college  he  hung  about  his  mother's  house, 
and  lived  for  some  years  the  life  of  a  buckeen — 
passed  a  month  with  this  relation  and  that,  a  year  20 
with  one  patron,  a  great  deal  of  time  at  the  public- 
house. f  Tired  of  this  life,  it  was  resolved  that  he 
should  go  to  London,  and  study  at  the  Temple; 
but  he  got  no  farther  on  the  road  to  London  and 

*  "  Poor   fellow  !      He    hardly   knew   an    ass    from    a    mule,    nor   a  25 
turkey   from   a   goose,   but   when   he   saw   it  on   the   table." — Cumber- 
land's Memoirs. 

t  "  These   youthful    follies,    like   the   fermentation    of   liquors,    often 
disturb  the  mind  only  in  order  to  its  future  refinement:    a  life  spent 
in   phlegmatic  apathy   resembles   those   liquors   which   never  ferment,   3^* 
and     are     consequently     always     muddy." — Goldsmith.      Memoir     of 
Voltaire. 

"  He  [Johnson]  said  '  Goldsmith  was  a  plant  that  flowered  late. 
There  appeared  nothing  remarkable  about  him  when  he  was 
young.'  " — Boswcll,  35 


STERNE   AND    GOLDSMITH  279 

the  woolsack  than  Dublin,  where  he  gambled  away 
the  fifty  pounds  given  to  him  for  his  outfit,  and 
whence  he  returned  to  the  indefatigable  forgive- 
ness of  home.  Then  he  determined  to  be  a  doctor, 
5  and  uncle  Contarine  helped  him  to  a  couple  of  years 
at  Edinburgh.  Then  from  Edinburgh  he  felt  that 
he  ought  to  hear  the  famous  professors  of  Leyden 
and  Paris,  and  wrote  most  amusing  pompous  let- 
ters to  his   uncle  about    the    great   Farheim,   Du 

10  Petit,  and  Duhamel  du  Monceau,  whose  lectures 
he  proposed  to  follow.  If  uncle  Contarine  believed 
those  letters — if  Oliver's  mother  believed  that  story 
which  the  youth  related  of  his  going  to  Cork,  with 
the   purpose    of    embarking    for    America,    of    his 

15  having  paid  his  passage-money,  and  having  sent 
his  kit  on  board;  of  the  anonymous  captain  sail- 
ing away  with  Oliver's  valuable  luggage  in  a  name- 
less ship,  never  to  return;  if  uncle  Contatine  and 
the  mother  at  Ballymahon  believed  his  stories,  they 

20  must  have  been  a  very  simple  pair ;  as  it  was  a  very 
simple  rogue  indeed  who  cheated  them.  When  the 
lad,  after  failing  in  his  clerical  examination,  after 
failing  in  his  plan  for  studying  the  law,  took  leave 
of  these  projects  and  of  his  parents,  and  set  out  for 

25  Edinburgh,  he  saw  mother,  and  uncle,  and  lazy 
Ballymahon,  and  green  native  turf,  and  sparkling 
river  for  the  last  time.  He  was  never  to  look  on 
old  Ireland  more,  and  only  in  fancy  revisit  her. 


"  But  me  not  destined  such  delights  to  share, 
30  My  prime  of  life  in  wandering  spent  and  care, 

Impelled,  with  steps  unceasing  to  pursue 
Some"fleeting  good  that  mocks  me  with  the  view; 


280  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS  '        ■ 

That  like  the  circle  bounding  earth  and  skies 
Allures  from  far,  yet,  as  I  follow,  tiies: 
My  fortune  leads  to  traverse  realms  alone, 
And  find  no  spot  of  all  the  world  my  own." 

I  spoke  in  a  former  lecture  of  that  high  courage  5 
which  enabled  Fielding,  in  spite  of  disease,  remorse, 
and  poverty,  always  to  retain  a  cheerful  spirit  and 
to  keep  his  manly  benevolence  and  love  of  truth 
intact,  as  if  these  treasures  had  been  confided  to 
him  for  the  public  benefit,  and  he  was  accountable  lo 
to  posterity  for  their  honourable  employ;    and  a 
constancy  equally  happy  and  admirable  I  think  was 
shown  by  Goldsmith,  whose  sweet  and  friendly  na- 
ture bloomed  kindly  always  in  the  midst  of  a  life's 
storm,  and  rain,  and  bitter  weather.*     The  poor  15 
fellow  was  never  so  friendless  but  he  could  befriend 
some  one;   never  so  pinched  and  wretched  but  he 
could  give  of  his  crust,  and  speak  his  word  of  com- 
passion.   If  he  had  but  his  flute  left,  he  could  give 
that,  and  make  the  children  happy  in  the  dreary  20 
London  court.     He  could  give  the  coals  in  that 
queer  coal-scuttle  we  read  of  to  his  poor  neigh- 
bour:   he  could  give  away  his  blankets  in  college 
to  the  poor  wiclow,  and  warm  himself  as  he  best 
might  in  the  feathers :    he  could  pawn  his  coat  to  25 
save  his  landlord  from  gaol :  when  he  was  a  school- 
usher  he  spent  his  earnings  in  treats  for  the  boys, 

*  "  An  '  inspired  idiot,'  Goldsmith,  hangs  strangely  about  him 
[Johnson].  .  .  .  Yet,  on  the  whole,  there  is  no  evil  in  the  '  goose- 
berry fool,'  but  rather  much  good;  of  a  finer,  if  of  a  weaker  sort  30 
than  Johnson's;  and  all  the  more  genuine  that  he  himself  could 
never  become  conscious  of  it, — though  unhappily  never  cease  otlemf^t- 
ing  to  become  so:  the  author  of  the  genuine  'Vicar  of  Wakefield,' 
nill  he  will  he,  must  needs  fly  towards  such  a  mass  of  genuine 
manhood. "—Carlyle's  Esiays  (2nd  ed.),  vol.  iv.  p.  gn  35 


STERNE  AND    GOLDSMITH  28 1 

and    the    good-natured    schoolmaster's    wife    said 

justly   that   she   ought    to    keep   Mr.    Goldsmith's 

V  money  as  well  as  the  young  gentleman's.   When  he 

■  met  his  pupils  in  later  life,  nothing  would  satisfy 

5  the  Doctor  but  he  must  treat  them  stih.  "  Have 
you  seen  the  print  of  me  after  Sir  Joshua  Rey- 
nolds?" he  asked  of  one  of  his  old  pupils.  "Not  seen 
it?  not  bought  it?  Sure,  Jack,  if  your  picture  had 
been  published,  I'd  not  have  been  without  it  half- 

10  an-hour."  His  purse  and  his  heart  were  every- 
body's, and  his  friends'  as  much  as  his  own.  When 
he  was  at  the  height  of  his  reputation,  and  the  Earl 
of  Northumberland,  going  as  Lord  Lieutenant  to 
Ireland,  asked  if    he    could  be  of  any  service  to 

15  Doctor  Goldsmith,  Goldsmith  recommended  his 
brother,  and  not  himself,  to  the  great  man.  "  My 
patrons,"  he  gallantly  said,  "are  the  booksellers, 
and  I  want  no  others."  *  Hard  patrons  they  were, 
and  hard  work  he  did;    but  he  did  not  complain 

20  ♦  "  At  present,  the  few  poets  of  England  no  longer  depend  on  the 
great  for  subsistence;  they  have  now  no  other  patrons  but  the  puhlic, 
and  the  public,  collectively  considered,  is  a  good  and  generous 
master.  It  is  indeed  too  frequently  mistaken  as  to  the  merits  of 
every  candidate  for  favour;    but  to  make  amends   it  is  never  mis- 

25  taken  long.  A  performance  indeed  may  be  forced  for  a  time  into 
reputation,  but,  destitute  of  real  merit,  it  soon  sinks;  time,  the 
touchstone  of  what  is  truly  valuable,  will  soon  discover  the  fraud, 
and  an  author  should  never  arrogate  to  himself  any  share  of  success 
till  his  works  have  been  read  at  least  ten  years  with   satisfaction. 

30  "  A  man  of  letters  at  present,  whose  works  are  valuable,  is  per- 
fectly sensible  of  their  value.  Every  polite  member  of  the  com- 
munity, by  buying  what  he  writes,  contributes  to  reward  him.  The 
ridicule,  therefore,  of  living  in  a  garret  might  have  been  wit  in  the 
last  age,  but  continues  such  no  longer,  because  no  longer  true.     A 

35  writer  of  real  merit  now  may  easily  be  rich,  if  his  heart  be  set  only 
on  fortune;  and  for  those  who  have  no  merit,  it  is  but  fit  that  such 
should  remain  in  merited  obscurity."— Goldsmith.  Citizen  of  thg 
World,  Let.  84. 


282  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS  "    • 

much:  if  in  his  early  writings  some  bitter  words 
escaped  him,  some  allusions  to  neglect  and  poverty, 
he  withdrew  these  expressions  when  his  works 
were  republished,  and  better  days  seemed  to  open 
for  him;  and  he  did  not  care  to  complain  that  5 
printer  or  publisher  had  overlooked  his  merit,  or  left 
him  poor.  The  Court  face  was  turned  from  honest 
Oliver,  the  Court  patronised  Beattie;  the  fashion 
did  not  shine  on  him — fashion  adored  Sterne.* 
Fashion 'pronounced  Kelly  to  be  the  great  writer  lo 
of  comedy  of  his  day.  A  little — not  ill-humour, 
but  plaintiveness — a  little  betrayal  of  wounded 
pride  which  he  showed  render  him  not  the  less 
amiable.  The  author  of  the  "  Vicar  of  Wakefield  " 
had  a  right  to  protest  when  Newbery  kept  back  15 
the  manuscript  for  two  years;  had  a  right  to  be 
a  little  peevish  with  Sterne;    a  little  angry  when 

*  Goldsmith  attacked  Sterne  obviously  enough,  censuring  his  in- 
decency, and  slighting  his  wit,  and  ridiculing  his  manner,  in  the 
53rd  letter  in  the  "  Citizen  of  the  World."  20 

"  As  in  common  conversation,"  says  he,  "  the  best  way  to  make 
the  audience  laugh  is  by  first  laughing  yourself;  so  in  writing, 
the  properest  manner  is  to  show  an  attempt  at  humour,  which  will 
pass  upon  most  for  humour  in  reality.  To  effect  this,  readers  must 
be  treated  with  the  most  perfect  familiarity,  in  one  page  the  author  25 
is  to  make  them  a  low  bow,  and  in  the  next  to  pull  them  by  the 
nose;  he  must  talk  in  riddles,  and  then  send  them  to  bed  in  order 
to  dream  for  the  solution,"  &c. 

Sterne's  humourous  mot  on  the  subject  of  the  gravest  part  of  the 
charges,    then,    as   now,   made   against   him,    may   perhaps   be   quoted  30 
here,  from  the  excellent,  the  respectable  Sir  \\^alter  Scott:— 

"  Soon  after  '  Tristram  '  had  appeared,  Sterne  asked  a  Yorkshire 
lady  of  fortune  and  condition,  whether  she  had  read  his  book.  '  I 
have  not,  IMr.  Sterne,'  was  the  answer;  'and  to  be  plain  with  you, 
I  am  informed  it  is  not  proper  for  female  perusal.'  '  My  dear  good  35 
lady,'  replied  the  author,  '  do  not  be  gulled  by  such  stories;  the 
book  is  like  your  young  heir  there  '  (pointing  to  a  child  of  three 
years  old,  who  was  rolling  on  the  carpet  in  his  white  tunic) :  '  he 
shows  at  times  a  good  deal  that  is  usually  concealed,  but  it  is  all  in 
perfect  innocence.'  "  ^ 


STERNE  AND    GOLDSMITH  283 

Colman's  actors  declined  their  parts  in  his  deHght- 
ful  comedy,  when  the  manager  refused  to  have  a 
scene  painted  for  it,  and  pronounced  its  damnation 
before  hearing.  He  had  not  the  great  pubHc  with 
5  him :  but  he  had  the  noble  Johnson,  and  the  ad- 
mirable Reynolds,  and  the  great  Gibbon,  and  the 
great  Burke,  and  the  great  Fox— friends  and  ad- 
mirers illustrious  indeed,  as  famous  as  those  who, 
fifty  years  before,  sat  round  Pope's  table. 

10  Nobody  knows,  and  I  dare  say  Goldsmith's 
buoyant  temper  kept  no  account  of,  all  the  pains 
which  he  endured  during  the  early  period  of  his 
literary  career.  Should  any  man  of  letters  in  our 
day  have  to  bear  up  against  such.  Heaven  grant 

15  he  may  come  out  of  the  period  of  misfortune  with 
such  a  pure  kind  heart  as  that  which  Goldsmith 
obstinately  bore  in  his  breast.  The  insults  to  which 
he  had  to  submit  are  shocking  to  read  of — slander, 
contumely,  vulgar  satire,  brutal  malignity  pervert- 

20  ing  his  commonest  motives  and  actions;  he  had 
his  share  of  these,  and  one's  anger  is  roused  at 
reading  of  them,  as  it  is  at  seeing  a  woman  insulted 
or  a  child  assaulted,  at  the  notion  that  a  creature 
so  very  gentle  and  weak,  and  full  of  love,  should 

25  have  had  to  suffer  so.  And  he  had  worse  than  in- 
sult to  undergo — to  own  to  fault  and  deprecate  the 
anger  of  ruffians.  There  is  a  letter  of  his  extant 
to  one  Griffiths,  a  bookseller,  in  which  poor  Gold- 
smith is  forced  to  confess  that  certain  books  sent 

30  by  Griffiths  are  in  the  hands  of  a  friend  from  whom 
Goldsmith  had  been  forced  to  borrow  money.  "  He 
was  wild,  sir,"  Johnson  said,  speaking  of  Goldsmith 


284  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

to  Boswell,  with  his  great,  wise  benevolence  and 
noble  mercifulness  of  heart — "  Dr.  Goldsmith  was 
wild,  sir;  but  he  is  so  no  more."  Ah!  if  we  pity 
the  good  and  weak  man  who  suffers  undeservedly, 
let  us  deal  very  gently  with  him  from  whom  misery  ^ 
extorts  not  only  tears,  but  shame;  let  us  think 
humbly  and  charitably  of  the  human  nature  that 
suffers  so  sadly  and  falls  so  low.  Whose  turn  may 
it  be  to-morrow?  What  weak  heart,  confident  be- 
fore trial,  may  not  succumb  under  temptation  in-  ^^ 
vincible?  Cover  the  good  man  who  has  been  van- 
quished— cover  his  face  and  pass  on. 

For  the  last  half-dozen  years  of  his  life.  Gold- 
smith was  far  removed  from  the  pressure  of  any 
ignoble  necessity:  and  in  the  receipt,  indeed,  of  a  ^5 
pretty  large  income  from  the  booksellers  his  pa- 
trons. Had  he  lived  but  a  few  years  more,  his 
public  fame-  would  have  been  as  great  as  his  pri- 
vate reputation,  and  he  might  have  enjoyed  alive 
a  part  of  that  esteem  which  his  country  has  ever  20 
since  paid  to  the  vivid  and  versatile  genius  who  has 
touched  on  almost  every  subject  of  literature,  and 
touched  nothing  that  he  did  not  adorn.  Except  in 
rare  instances,  a  man  is  known  in  our  profession, 
and  esteemed  as  a  skilful  workman,  years  before  the  25 
lucky  hit  which  trebles  his  usual  gains,  and  stamps 
him  a  popular  author.  In  the  strength  of  his  age, 
and  the  dawn  of  his  reputation,  having  for  backers 
and  friends  the  most  illustrious  literary  men  of  his 
time,*    fame   and   prosperity   might   have   been   in  30 

*  "  Goldsmith  told  us  that  he  was  now  busy  in  writing  a  Natural 
History;  and  that  he  might  have  full  leisure  for  it,  he  had  taken 
lodgings    at    a    farmer's    house,    near    to    the    six-mile    stone    in    the 


STEKXE  AND    GOLDSMITH  285 

Store  for  Goldsmith,  had  fate  so  willed  it,  and,  at 
forty-six,  had  not  sudden  disease  carried  him  off. 
I  say  prosperity  rather  than  competence,  for  it  is 
probable  that  no  sum  could  have  put  order  into 
5  his  affairs,  or  sufficed  for  his  irreclaimable  habits 
of  dissipation.  It  must  be  remembered  that  he 
owed  £2000  when  he  died.  "  Was  ever  poet," 
Johnson  asked,  "  so  trusted  before?  "  As  has  been 
the  case  with  many  another  good  fellow  of  his  na- 

10  tion,  his  life  was  tracked  and  his  substance  wasted 
by  crowds  of  hungry  beggars  and  lazy  dependants. 
If  they  came  at  a  lucky  time  (and  be  sure  they  knew 
his  affairs  better  than  he  did  himself,  and  watched 
his  pay-day),  he  gave  them  of  his  money:    if  they 

^5  begged  on  empty-purse  days,  he  gave  them  his 
promissory  bills:  or  he  treated  them  to  a  tavern 
where  he  had  credit;  or  he  obliged  them  with  an 
order  upon  honest  Mr.  Filby  for  coats,  for  which 
he  paid  as  long  as  he  could  earn,  and  until  the 

20  shears  of  Filby  were  to  cut  for  him  no  more. 
Staggering  under  a  load  of  debt  and  labour, 
tracked  by  bailiffs  and  reproachful  creditors,  run- 
ning from  a  hundred  poor  dependants,  whose  ap- 
pealing looks  were  perhaps  the  hardest  of  all  pains 

25  for  him  to  bear,  devising  fevered  plans  for  the  mor- 
row, new  histories,  new  comedies,  all  sorts  of  new 

Edgware  Road,  and  had  carried  down  his  books  in  two  returned 
post-chaises.  He  said  he  believed  the  farmer's  family  thought  him 
an    odd   character,    similar   to   that   in    which   the   Spectator   appeared 

30  to  his  landlady  and  her  children;  he  was  The  Gentleman.  Mr. 
Mickle,  the  translator  of  the  Lusiad,  and  I,  went  to  visit  him  at 
this  place  a  few  days  afterwards.  He  was  not  at  home;  but  having 
a  curiosity  to  see  his  apartment,  we  went  in,  and  found  curious 
scraps    of    descriptions    of    animals    scrawled    upon    the   wall    with    a 

35  blacklead  pencil." — Boswell. 


286  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

literary  schemes,  flying  from  all  these  into  seclu- 
sion, and  out  of  seclusion  into  pleasure — at  last,  at 
five-and-forty,  death  seized  him  and  closed  his 
career.*  I  have  been  many  a  time  in  the  cham- 
bers in  the  Temple  which  were  his,  and  passed  up  5 
the  staircase,  which  Johnson  and  Burke  and  Rey- 
nolds trod  to  see  their  friend,  their  poet,  their  kind 
Goldsmith— the  stair  on  which  the  poor  women 
sat  weeping  bitterly  when  they  heard  that  the 
greatest  and  most  generous  of  all  men  was  dead  lo 
within  the  black  oak  door.f  Ah!  it  was  a  different 
lot  from  that  for  which  the  poor  fellow  sighed, 
when  he  wrote  with  heart  yearning  for  home  those 
most  charming  of  all  fond  verses,  in  which  he 
fancies  he  revisits  Auburn: —  15 


•  "  When  Goldsmith  was  dying.  Dr.  Turton  said  to  him,  '  Your 
pulse  is  in  greater  disorder  than  it  should  be,  from  the  degree  of 
fever  which  you  have;  is  your  mind  at  ease  ?  '  Goldsmith  an- 
swered it  was  not." — Dr.  Johnson   (in  Boswell). 

"  Chambers,  you  find,  is  gone  far,  and  poor  Goldsmith  is  gone  20 
much  further.  He  died  of  a  fever,  exasperated,  as  I  believe,  by  the 
fear  of  distress.  He  had  raised  money  and  squandered  it,  by  every 
artifice  of  acquisition  and  folly  of  expense.  But  let  not  his  failings 
be  remembered;  he  was  a  very  great  man." — Dr.  Johnson  to  Boswell, 
July  5th,   1774.  25 

t  "  When  Burke  was  told  [of  Goldsmith's  death]  he  burst  into 
tears.  Reynolds  was  in  his  painting-room  when  the  messenger 
went  to  him;  but  at  once  he  laid  his  pencil  aside,  which  in  times 
of  great  family  distress  he  had  not  been  known  to  do,  left  his 
painting-room,  and  did  not  re-enter  it  that  day.  ...  30 

"  The  staircase  of  Brick  Court  is  said  to  have  been  filled  with 
mourners,  the  reverse  of  domestic;  women  without  a  home,  without 
domesticity  of  any  kind,  with  no  friend  but  him  they  had  come  to 
weep  for;  outcasts  of  that  great,  solitary,  wicked  city,  to  whom 
he  had  never  forgotten  to  be  kind  and  charitable.  And  he  had  35 
domestic  mourners,  too.  His  coffin  was  reopened  at  the  request  of 
Miss  Horneck  and  her  sister  (such  was  the  regard  he  was  known  to 
have  for  them  !)  that  a  lock  might  be  cut  from  his  hair.  It  was  in 
Mrs.  Gwyn's  possession  when  slie  died,  after  nearly  seventy  years." 
— Forster's  Goldsmith.  40 


STEliNE  AND    GOLDSMITH  287 

"  Here,  as  I  take  my  solitSTy  rounds, 
Amidst  thy  tangling  walks  and  ruined  grounds, 
And,  many  a  year  elapsed,  return  to  view 
Where  once  the  cottage  stood,  the  hawthorn  grew, 
5         Remembrance  wakes,  with  all  her  busy  train. 
Swells  at  my  breast,  and  turns  the  past  to  pain. 

In  all  my  wanderings  round  this  world  of  care, 
In  all  my  griefs — and  God  has  given  my  share — 
I  still  had  hopes,  my  latest  hours  to  crown, 

10         Amidst  these  humble  bowers  to  lay  me  down; 
To  husband  out  life's  taper  at  the  close. 
And  keep  the  flame  from  wasting  by  repose; 
I  still  had  hopes — for  pride  attends  us  still — 
Amidst  the  swains  to  show  my  book-learned  skill, 

15         Around  my  fire  an  evening  group  to  draw. 
And  tell  of  all  I  felt  and  all  I  saw; 
And,  as  a  hare,  whom  hounds  and  horns  pursue, 
Pants  to  the  place  from  whence  at  first  he  flew — 
I  still  had  hopes,  my  long  vexations  past, 

20         Here  to  return,  and  die  at  home  at  last. 

O  blest  retirement,  friend  to  life's  decline  ! 
Retreats  from  care  that  never  must  be  mine — 
How  blest  is  he  who  crowns,  in  shades  like  these, 
A  youth  of  labour  with  an  age  of  ease; 

25         Who  quits  a  world  where  strong  temptations  try, 
And,  since  'tis  hard  to  combat,  learns  to  fly  ! 
For  him  no  wretches  born  to  work  and  weep 
Explore  the  mine  or  tempt  the  dangerous  deep; 
No  surly  porter  stands  in  guilty  state 

30         To  spurn  imploring  famine  from  the  gate: 
But  on  he  moves  to  meet  his  latter  end. 
Angels  around  befriending  virtue's  friend; 
Sinks  to  the  grave  with  unperceived  decay. 
Whilst  resignation  gently  slopes  the  way; 

35  And  all  his  prospects  brightening  to  the  last, 

His  heaven  commences  ere  the  world  be  past." 

In  these  verses.  I  need  not  say  with  what  melody, 
with  what  touching  truth,  with  what  exquisite 
beauty  of  comparison — as  indeed  in  hundreds  more 


288  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

pages  of  the  writings  of  this  honest  sotfl — the  whole 
character  of  the  man  is  told — his  humble  confes- 
sion of  faults  and  weakness;  his  pleasant  little 
vanity,  and  desire  that  his  village  should  admire 
him;  his  simple  scheme  of  good  in  which  every-  5 
body  was  to  be  happy — no  beggar  was  to  be  re- 
fused his  dinner — nobody  in  fact  was  to  work 
much,  and  he  to  be  the  harmless  chief  of  the 
Utopia,  and  the  monarch  of  the  Irish  Yvetot.  He 
would  have  told  again,  and  without  fear  of  their  lo 
failing,  those  famous  jokes  *  which  had  hung  fire 

*  "  Goldsmith's  incessant  desire  of  being  conspicuous  in  com- 
pany was  the  occasion  of  his  sometimes  appearing  to  such  dis- 
advantage, as  one  should  hardly  have  supposed  possible  in  a  man 
of  his  genius.  When  his  literary  reputation  had  risen  deservedly  ^5 
high,  and  his  society  was  much  courted,  he  became  very  jealous 
of  the  extraordinary  attention  which  was  everywhere  paid  to  John- 
son. One  evening,  in  a  circle  of  wits,  he  found  fault  with  me  for 
talking  of  Johnson  as  entitled  to  the  honour  of  unquestionable  su- 
periority. '  Sir,'  said  he,  '  you  are  for  making  a  monarchy  of  what  20 
should  be  a  republic' 

"  He  was  still  more  mortified,  when,  talking  in  a  company  with 
fluent  vivacity,  and,  as  he  flattered  himself,  to  the  admiration  of  all 
present,  a  German  who  sat  next  him,  and  perceived  Johnson  rolling 
himself  as  if  about  to  speak,  suddenly  stopped  him,  saying,  '  Stay,  25 
stay — Toctor  Shonson  is  going  to  zay  zomething.'  This  was  no 
doubt  very  provoking,  especially  to  one  so  irritable  as  Goldsmith, 
who  frequently  mentioned  it  with  strong  expressions  of  indigna- 
tion. 

"  It  may  also  be  observed  that  Goldsmith  was  sometimes  content  3^ 
to  be  treated  with  an  easy  familiarity,  but  upon  occasions  would  be 
consequential  and  important.  An  instance  of  this  occurred  in  a  small 
particular.  Johnson  had  a  way  of  contracting  the  names  of  his 
friends,  as  Beauclerk,  Beau;  Boswell,  Bozzy.  ...  I  remember  one 
day,  when  Tom  Davies  was  telling  that  Doctor  Johnson  said — '  W^e  35 
are  all  in  labour  for  a  name  to  Goldy's  play,'  Goldsmith  seemed  dis- 
pleased that  such  a  liberty  should  be  taken  with  his  name,  and  said, 
'  I  have  often  desired  him  not  to  call  me  Goldy.'  " 

This    is    one    of    several    of    Boswell's    depreciatory    mentions    of 
Goldsmith — which    may   well   irritate   biographers   and   admirers,   and  4^ 
also   those   who   take   that   more  kindly   and    more   profound   view  of 
Boswell's    own    character,    which    was    opened    up    by    Mr.    Carlyle's 
famous  article  on  his  book.     No  wonder  that  Mr.  Irving  calls  Bos- 


STERNE  AND    GOLDSMITH  289 

in  London;  he  would  have  talked  of  his  great 
friends  of  the  Club — of  my  Lord  Clare  and  my 
Lord  Bishop,  my  Lord  Nugent — sure  he  knew 
them  intimately,  and  was  hand  and  glove  with  some 
5  of  the  best  men  in  town — and  he  would  have 
spoken  of  Johnson  and  of  Burke,  and  of  Sir  Joshua 
who  had  painted  him — and  he  would  have  told 
v/onderful  sly  stories  of  Ranelagh  and  the  Pan- 
theon, and  the  masquerades  at  Madame  Cornelys; 

10  and  he  would  have  toasted,  with  a  sigh,  the  Jes- 
samy  Bride — the  lovely  Mary  Horneck. 

The  figure  of  that  charming  young  lady  forms 
one  of  the  prettiest  recollections  of  Goldsmith's 
life.      She   and   her   beautiful   sister,   who   married 

15  Bunbury,  the  graceful  and  humorous  amateur 
artist  of  those  days,  when  Gilray  had  but  just  begun 
to  try  his   powers,   were  among  the   kindest   and 

well   an    "  incarnation    of   toadyism."     And   the   worst   of  it    is,  Ihat 
Johnson    himself    has     suffered    from    this    habit    of    the    Laird    of 

20  Auchinleck's.  People  are  apt  to  forget  under  what  Boswellian 
stimulus  the  great  Doctor  uttered  many  hasty  things: — things  no 
more  indicative  of  the  nature  of  the  depths  of  his  character  than  the 
phosphoric  gleaming  of  the  sea,  when  struck  at  night,  is  indicative 
of  radical  corruption  of  nature  !     In  truth,  it  is  clear  enough  on  the 

25  whole  that  both  Johnson  and  Goldsmith  apl>rcciatcd  each  other, 
and  that  they  mutually  knew  it.  They  were,  as  it  were,  tripped  up 
and  flung  against  each  other,  occasionally,  by  the  blundering  and 
silly  gambolling  of  people  in  company. 

Something   must   be  allowed   for    Boswell's   "  rivalry   for  Johnson's 

'jO  good  graces  "  with  Oliver  (as  Sir  Walter  Scott  has  remarked),  for 
Oliver  was  intimate  with  the  Doctor  before  his  biographer  was, — 
and,  as  we  all  remember,  marched  oflf  with  him  to  "  take  tea  with 
Mrs.  Williams  "  before  Boswell  had  advanced  to  that  honourable 
degree    of    intimacy.      But,    in    truth,    Boswell — though    he    perhaps 

35  showed  more  talent  in  his  delineation  of  the  Doctor  than  .'s  gener- 
ally ascribed  to  him — had  not  faculty  to  take  a  fair  view  of  two 
great  men  at  a  time.  Besides,  as  Mr.  Forster  justly  remarks,  "  he 
was  impatient  of  Goldsmith  from  the  first  hour  of  their  acquaint- 
ance."— Life  and  Adventitres,  p.  292. 


290  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

dearest  of  Goldsmith's  many  friends,  cheered  and 
pitied  him,  travelled  abroad  with  him,  made  him 
welcome  at  their  home,  and  gave  him  many  a 
pleasant  holiday.  He  bought  his  finest  clothes  to 
figure  at  their  country-house  at  Barton — he  wrote  5 
tliem  droll  verses.  They  loved  him,  laughed  at 
him,  played  him  tricks  and  made  him  happy.  He 
asked  for  a  loan  from  Garrick,  and  Garrick  kindly 
supplied  him,  to  ena1)le  him  to  go  to  Barton:  but 
there  were  to  be  no  more  holidays  and  only  one  10 
brief  struggle  more  for  poor  Goldsmith.  A  lock 
of  his  hair  was  taken  from  the  coffin  and  given  to 
the  Jessamy  Bride.  She  lived  cpiite  into  our  time. 
Hazlitt  saw  her  an  old  lady,  but  beautiful  still,  in 
Northcote's  painting-room,  who  told  the  eager  15 
critic  how  proud  she  always  was  that  Goldsmith, 
had  admired  her.  The  younger  Colman  has  left 
a  touching  reminiscence  of  him  (vol.  i.  63.  64): — 

"  I   was    only  five  ye^rs   old,"  he   says,   "  when 
Goldsmith  took  me  on  his  knee  one  evening  whilst  20 
he  was  drinking  coffee  with  my  father,  and  began 
to   play  with   me,   which   amiable   act   I   returned, 
with  the  ingratitude  of  a  peevish  brat,  by  giving 
him  a  very  smart  slap  on  the  face:    it  must  have 
been  a  tingler,  for  it  left  the  marks  of  my  spiteful  25 
paw  on  his  cheek.     This  infantile  outrage  was  fol- 
lowed by  summary  justice,  and  I  was  locked  up 
by  my  indignant  father  in  an  adjoining  room  to 
undergo  solitary  imprisonment  in  the  dark.     Here 
I    began   to   howl   and   scream   most   abominably,  30 
\vhich  was  no  bad  step  towards  my  liberation,  since 
those  who  were  not  inclined  to  pity  me  mi^ht  be 


STERNE   AND    GOLDSMITH  29 1 

likely  to  set  me  free  for  the  purpose  of  abating  a 
nuisance. 

"  At  length  a  generous  friend  appeared  to  ex- 
tricate me  from  jeopardy,  and  that  generous  friend 

5  was  no  other  than  the  man  I  had  so  wantonly  mo- 
lested by  assault  and  battery — -it  was  the  tender- 
hearted Doctor  himself,  with  a  lighted  candle  in 
his  hand  and  a  smile  upon  his  countenance,  which 
was  still  partially  red  from  the  efifects  of  my  petu- 

10  lance.  I  sulked  and  sobbed  as  he  fondled  and 
soothed,  till  I  began  to  brighten.  Goldsmith  seized 
the  propitious  moment  of  returning  good-humour, 
when  he  put  down  the  candle  and  began  to  conjure. 
He  placed  three  hats,  which  happened  to  be  In  the 

15  room,  and  a  shilling  under  each.  The  shillings, 
he  told  me,  were  England,  France,  and  Spain. 
'Hey  presto  cockalorum!'  cried  the  Doctor,  and 
lo,  on  uncovering  the  shillings,  which  had  been 
dispersed  each  beneath  a  separate  hat,  they  were 

20  all  found  congregated  under  one.  I  was  no  poli- 
tician at  five  years  old,  and  therefore  might  not 
have  wondered  at  the  sudden  revolution  which 
brought  England,  France,  and  Spain  all  under  one 
crown;    but  as  also  I  was  no  conjurer,  it  amazed 

25  me  beyond  measure.  .  .  .  From  that  time,  when- 
ever the  Doctor  came  to  visit  my  father,  *  I  plucked 
his  gown  to  share  the  good  man's  smile;'  a  game 
at  romps  constantly  ensued,  and  we  were  always 
cordial   friends   and  merry  playfellows.     Our  un- 

30  equal  companionship  varied  somewhat  as  to  sports 
as  I  grew  older;  but  it  did  not  last  long:  my  senior 
playmate  died  in  his  forty-fifth  year,  when  I  had 


292  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

attained  my  eleventh.  ...  In  all  the  numerous  ac- 
counts of  his  virtues  and  foibles,  his  genius  and 
absurdities,  his  knowledge  of  nature  and  ignorance 
of  the  world,  his  '  compassion  for  another's  woe  * 
u'as  always  predominant;  and  my  trivial  story  of  = 
his  humouring  a  froward  child  weighs  but  as  a 
feather  in  the  recorded  scal'e  of  his  benevolence." 

Think  of  him  reckless,  thriftless,  vain,  if  you 
like — but  merciful,  gentle,  generous,  full  of  love 
and  pity.  He  passes  out  of  our  life,  and  goes  to  ^o 
render  his  account  beyond  it.  Think  of  the  poor 
pensioners  weeping  at  his  grave;  think  of  the 
noble  spirits  that  admired  and  deplored  him;  think 
of  the  righteous  pen  that  wrote  his  epitaph- — and 
of  the  wonderful  and  unanimous  response  of  af-  '^ 
fection  with  which  the  world  has  paid  back  the 
love  he  gave  it.  Hi.s  humour  delighting  us  still: 
his  song  fresh  and  beautiful  as  when  first  he 
charmed  with  it:  his  words  in  all  our  mouths:  his 
very  weaknesses  beloved  amd  familiar — his  benevo-  20 
lent  spirit  seems  still  to  smile  upon  us;  to  do  gen- 
tle kindnesses:  to  succour  with  sweet  charity:  to 
soothe,  caress,  and  forgive:  to  plead  with  the  for- 
tunate for  the  unhappy  and  the  poor. 

His  name  is  the  last  in  the  list  of  those  men  of  25 
humour  who  have  formed  the  themes  of  the  dis- 
courses which  you  have  heard  so  kindly. 

Long  before  I  had  ever  hoped  for  such  an  audi- 
ence, or  dreamed  of  the  possibility  of  the  good  for- 
tune which  has  brought  me  so  many  friends,  I  was  30 
at  issue  with  some  of  my  literary  brethren  upon  a 


STERNE  AND    GOLDSMITH  293 

point — which  they  held  from  tradition  I  think 
rather  than  experience — that  our  profession  was 
neglected  in  this  country;  and  that  men  of  letters 
were    ill  received  and  held  in   slight   esteem.     It 

5  would  hardly  be  grateful  of  me  now  to  alter  my  old 
opinion  that  we  do  meet  with  good-will  and  kind- 
ness, with  generous  helping  hands  in  tlie  time  of 
our  necessity,  with  cordial  and  friendly  recognition. 
What  claim  had  any  one  of  these  of  whom  I  have 

10  been  speaking,  but  genius?  What  return  of  grati- 
tude, fame,  affection,  did  it  not  bring  to  all? 

What  punishment  befell  those  who  were  unfor- 
tunate among  them,  but  that  which  follows  reck- 
less habits  and  careless  lives?     For  these  faults  a 

'5  wit  must  suffer  like  the  dullest  prodigal  that  ever 
ran  in  debt.  He  must  pay  the  tailor  if  he  wears 
the  coat;  his  children  must  go  in  rags  if  he  spends 
his  money  at  the  tavern;  he  can't  come  to  London 
and  be  made  Lord  Chancellor  if  he  stops  on  the 

20  road  and  gambles  away  his  last  shilling  at  Dublin. 
And  he  must  pay  the  social  penalty  of  these  follies 
too,  and  expect  that  the  world  will  shun  the  man 
of  bad  habits,  that  women  will  avoid  the  man  of 
loose  life,  that  prudent  folks  will  close  their  doors 

25  as  a  precaution,  and  before  a  demand  should  be 
made  on  their  pockets  by  the  needy  prodigal. 
With  what  difficulty  had  any  one  of  these  men  to 
contend,  save  that  eternal  and  mechanical  one  of 
want  of  means  and  lack  of  capital,  and  of  which 

30  thousands  of  young  lawyers,  young  doctors,  young 
soldiers  and  sailors,  of  inventors,  manufacturers, 
shopkeepers,  have  to  complain?     Hearts  as  brave 


294  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

and  resolute  as  ever  beat  in  the  breast  of  any  wit 
or  poet,  sicken  and  break  daily  in  the  vain  en- 
deavour and  unavailing  struggle  against  life's  dif- 
ficulty. Don't  we  see  daily  ruined  inventors,  grey- 
haired  midshipmen,  balked  heroes,  blighted  5 
curates,  barristers  pining  a  hungry  life  out  in 
chambers,  the  attorneys  never  mounting  to  their 
garrets,  whilst  scores  of  them  are  rapping  at  the 
door  of  the  successful  quack  below?  If  these  suf- 
fer, who  is  the  author,  that  he  should  be  exempt?  lo 
Let  us  bear  our  ills  with  the  same  constancy  with 
which  others  endure  them,  accept  our  manly  part 
in  life,  hold  our  own,  and  ask  no  more.  I  can 
conceive  of  no  kings  or  laws  causing  or  curing 
Goldsmith's  improvidence,  or  Fielding's  fatal  love  ^5 
of  pleasure,  or  Dick  Steele's  mania  for  running 
races  with  the  constable.  You  never  can  outrun 
that  sure-footed  officer — riot  by  any  swiftness  or  by 
dodges  devised  by  any  genius,  however  great;  and 
he  carries  off  the  Tatler  to  the  spunging-house,  or  20 
taps  the  Citizen  of  the  World  on  the  shoulder  as  he 
would  any  other  mortal. 

Does  society  look  down  on  a  man  because  he 
is  an  author?  I  suppose  if  people  want  a  buffoon 
they  tolerate  him  only  in  so  far  as  he  is  amusing;  25 
it  can  hardly  be  expected  that  they  should  respect 
him  as  an  equal.  Is  there  to  be  a  guard  of  honour 
provided  for  the  author  of  the  last  new  novel  or 
poem?  how  long  is  he  to  reign,  and  keep  other 
potentates  out  of  possession?  He  retires,  grum-  30 
bles,  and  prints  a  lamentation  that  literature  is 
despised.     If  Captain  A.  is  left  out  of  Lady  B.'s 


STERNE   AND    GOLDSMITH  295 

parties,  he  does  not  state  that  the  army  is  despised: 
if  Lord  C.  no  longer  asks  Counsellor  D.  to  dinner, 
Counsellor  D.  does  not  announce  that  the  bar  is 
insulted.  He  is  not  fair  to  society  if  he  enters  it 
5  with  this  suspicion  hankering  about  him;  if  he  is 
doubtful  about  his  reception,  how  hold  up  his  head 
honestly,  and  look  frankly  in  the  face  that  world 
about  which  he  is  full  of  suspicion?  Is  he  place- 
hunting,  and  thinking  in  his  mind  that  he  ought 

10  to  be  made  an  Ambassador  like  Prior,  or  a  Secre- 
tary of  State  like  Addison?  his  pretence  of  equality 
falls  to  the  ground  at  once;  he  is  scheming  for  a 
patron,  not  shaking  the  hand  of  a  friend,  when  he 
meets  the  world.    Treat  such  a  man  as  he  deserves ; 

15  laugh  at  his  bufifoonery,  and  give  him  a  dinner  and 
a  hon  jour;  laugh  at  his  self-suf^ciency  and  absurd 

-  assumptions  of  superiority,  and  his  equally  ludi- 
crous airs  of  martyrdom:  laugh  at  his  flattery  and 
his  scheming,  and  buy  it,  if  it's  worth  the  having. 

20  Let  the  wag  have  his  dinner  and  the  hireling  his 
pay,  if  you  want  him,  and  make  a  profound  bow  to 
the  grand  homme  incompris,  and  the  boisterous 
martyr,  and  show  him  the  door.  The  great  world, 
the  great  aggregate  experience,  has  its  good  sense, 

25  as  it  has  its  good  humour.  It  detects  a  pretender, 
as  it  trusts  a  loyal  heart.  It  is  kind  in  the  main: 
how  should  it  be  otherwise  than  kind,  when  it  is  so 
wise  and  clear-headed?  To  any  literary  man  who 
says,  "  It  despises  my  profession,"  I  say,  with  all 

30  my  might — no,  no,  no.  It  may  pass  over  your 
individual  case — how  many  a  brave  fellow  has 
failed  in  the  race   and  perished   unknown   in   the 


296  ENGLISH  HUMOURISTS 

Struggle! — but  it  treats  you  as  you  merit  in  the 
main.  If  you  serve  it,  it  is  not  vmthankful;  if  you 
please  it,  it  is  pleased;  if  you  cringe  to  it,  it  de- 
tects you,  and  scorns  you  if  you  are  mean;  it  re- 
turns your  cheerfulness  with  its  good  humour;  it  5 
deals  not  ungenerously  with  your  weaknesses;  it 
recognises  most  kindly  your  merits;  it  gives  you 
a  fair  place  and  fair  play.  To  any  one  of  those 
men  of  whom  we  have  spoken  was  it  in  the  main 
ungrateful?  A  king  might  refuse  Goldsmith  a  pen-  10 
sion,  as  a  publisher  might  keep  his  masterpiece  and 
the  delight  of  all  the  world  in  his  desk  for  two 
years;  but  it  was  mistake,  and  not  ill-will.  Noble 
and  illustrious  names  of  Swift,  and  Pope,  and  Ad- 
dison! dear  and  honoured  memories  of  Goldsmith  15 
and  Fielding!  kind  friends,  teachers,  benefactors! 
who  shall  say  that  our  countpy,  which  continues 
to  bring  you  such  an  unceasing  tribute  of  applause, 
admiration,  love,  sympathy,  does  not  do  honour  to 
the  literary  calling  in  the  honour  which  it  bestows  20 
upon  you? 


THE   END. 


NOTES. 


SWIFT. 

1.  6. — Harlequin.  A  popular  character  in  the  Italian  comedy. 
He  was  a  buffoon,  dressed  in  party-colored  clothes,  who  amused 
the  audience  by  horse  play. 

2.  12. —  The  humourous  ivriier,  etc.  Thackeray  is  here  doubt- 
less referring  to  a  famous  humourist  of  the  nineteenth  century — 
himself. 

2.  i6.  —  To  the  best  of  his  means,  etc.  This  sentence  is  an 
example  of  Thackeray's  occasional  carelessness  in  style.  Note 
the  extreme  awkwardness  of  the  construction. 

3.  3. — Kilkenny.  Town  in  the  county  of  Kilkenny,  in  the 
southern  part  of  Ireland.  Congreve,  Farquhar,  and  Berkeley  also 
attended  this  grammar  school.  In  view  of  Swift's  quarrelsome 
disposition,  it  seems  not  inappropriate  that  his  early  life  should 
hr.ve  had  associations  in  a  place  made  famous  by  the  legend  of  the 
Kilkenny  cats. 

3.  5. —  Was  -wild.  It  does  not  appear  that  Swift  was  dissipated. 
He  was  morose  and  rebellious.  Extreme  poverty  is  not  apt  to 
lessen  the  pride  and  sensitiveness  of  an  undergraduate  like  Swift. 
He  did  well  in  Greek  and  Latin,  was  poor  in  philosophy,  and,' 
curiously  enough,  the  future  Dean  was  marked  negligenter  in 
theology. 

4.  8. — He  was  appointed  Dean  of  St.  Patrick's  Cathedral,  in 
Dublin,  in  April,  1713,  and  was  installed  on  June  13. 

6.  17. —  Would  you  have  liked  to  he  a  friend  of  the  great  Dean  ? 
The  majority  of  Swift's  readers  would  to-day  undoubtedly  answer 
in  the  affirmative. 

8.   II. — His  servility.    This  is  surely  unfair.     Swift  was  not  a 

297 


298  NOTES. 

cringing  toady,  nor  a  bootlicker.  Manliness  was  an  essential 
feature  of  his  character;  and  it  is  well  known  that  in  dealing  out 
patronage  he  always  served  himself  last,  especially  when  there 
was  not  enough  to  go  around. 

Q.  14. — Macheath.  A  highwayman  who  is  the  hero  of  Gay's 
Beggars'  Opera  (1728). 

II,   7. — Condottieri.      Italian  for  "  soldiers  of  fortune." 

11.  8.  —  The  Boyne.  Battle  fought  July  i,  1690,  in  Ireland,  in 
which  King  William  III  decisively  defeated  the  deposed  Stuart 
King  James  II.  The  Boyne  is  the  most  important  river  in  eastern 
Ireland,  being  65  miles  long.  An  obelisk,  150  feet  high,  now  com- 
memorates the  great  battle. 

12.  6. — South  Sea  Bubble.  The  South  Sea  Company  was 
established  by  Lord  Treasurer  Harley  in  171 1  with  the  design  of 
providing  for  the  extinction  of  the  public  debt,  then  about 
j^io,ooo,ooo.  The  debt  was  assumed  by  a  number  of  merchants, 
the  Government  agreeing  to  pay  6  per  cent,  interest  for  a  certain 
period,  securing  the  sum  by  making  permanent  certain  impost 
duties.  The  Government  granted  to  purchasers  of  the  fund  a 
monopoly  of  the  trade  to  the  South  Sea  (the  coast  of  Spanish 
America),  and  the  Company  was  organised  under  the  name 
"South  Sea  Company."  The  prevailing  opinion  was  that  enor- 
mous riches  awaited  all  stockholders  ;  the  Company  flourished  ;  it 
vied  with  the  Bank  of  England  in  controlling  English  finances. 
In  1720  the  Company  assumed  the  entire  debt  of  over  ^30,000,000, 
bearing  interest  at  5  per  cent.  The  stock  was  in  great  demand. 
A  rage  for  speculation  followed.  The  sum  of  ^^looo  was  paid  for 
a  single  share  of  £\'X>-  Other  bubbles  followed  suit ;  to  make  oil 
jfrom  sunflowers,  to  extract  silver  from  lead,  etc.  The  streets  near 
'Change  Alley  were  lined  with  desks.  As  the  year  1720  drew  to 
a  close,  the  bubble  burst.     Thousands  of  families  were  ruined. 

12.  24.  —  Coup.     A  political  stroke,  usually  called  coup  d'e'tat. 

13.  I. — Copenhagen.  The  city  was  bombarded  in  1807. 
"Shortly  after  the  trc.r  •  of  Tilsit  Canning  learnt  that  Napoleon 
meant  to  seize  the  fleet  of  Denmark,  which  was  at  that  time  neutral, 
and  to  employ  it  against  Great  Britain.  A  British  fleet  and  army 
were  sent  to  Copenhagen,  and  the  Crown  Prince  of  Denmark  was 
asked  to  deliver  up  the  Danish  fleet  on  a  promise  that  it  should  be 


NO  TES.  299 

restored  at  the  end  of  the  war.  On  his  refusal,  Copenhagen  was 
bombarded  till  at  last  the  Danes  gave  way.  The  fleet  was  sur- 
rendered, and  the  British  Government,  on  the  plea  that  it  had 
been  driven  to  use  force,  refused  to  be  bound  by  its  offer  to  restore 
the  ships  ultimately  to  their  owners.  There  were  many  in  Eng- 
land who  found  fault  with  the  whole  proceeding,  and  even  George 
III  seems  to  have  been  very  much  of  their  opinion.  Speaking  to 
the  gentleman  who  had  carried  to  the  Crown  Prince  the  message 
asking  him  to  give  up  the  fleet,  the  old  King  asked  whether  he 
found  the  Prince  upstairs  or  downstairs.  ♦  He  was  on  the  ground 
floor,  please  your  Majesty,'  was  the  reply.  'I  am  glad  of  it  for 
your  sake,'  said  the  King;  'for  if  he  had  half  my  spirit,  he  would 
have  kicked  you  downstairs.'  "  (Gardiner's  Student's  History  of 
England,  p.  860.) 

15.  I. — Poetical  poiver.  Although  Swift  wrote  many  clever 
rimes  and  witty  verses,  his  poetical  powers  were  very  slight,  and 
the  real  reason  why  he  was  afraid  to  use  them  was  because  he  did 
not  possess  them.  No  great  writer  ever  made  more  clearly  a  false 
start  in  literature  than  did  Swift.  As  the  most  convincing  proof 
of  Bacon's  lack  of  poetic  genius  lies  in  his  own  verse-writing,  so 
no  one  can  read  Swift's  early  poems  without  mentally  saying 
Amen  to  Dryden's  famous  remark,  "Cousin  Swift,  you  will  never 
be  a  poet."  It  was  not  the  brutality  of  Dryden's  statement  that 
galled  Swift ;  it  was  its  truth.  Let  readers  examine  Swift's  early 
Pindaric  Odes,  and  judge  for  themselves. 

15.  10. — Sir  William  Temple.  The  elegant  essayist,  litterateur 
and  dilettante,  born  1628,  died  1698. 

15.  23. — Mantua  vce,  etc.  From  Vergil,  Ed.  ix.  28.  "Alas, 
Mantua,  too  near  the  wretched  Cremona  !  ■'     An  excellent  quip. 

19.  10. — Moxa.  "A  soft  woolly  mass  prepared  from  the  young 
leaves  oi  Artemisia  Chinensis,  and  used  as  a  cautery  by  burning 
it  on  the  skin  ;  hence,  any  substance  used  in  a  like  manner, 
as  cotton  impregnated  with  niter,  amadou."  (Webster's  Diet.) 
Amadou  is  a  spongy  substance  growing  on  trees. 

20.  25. — Plates-bandes.     Flower-beds. 

20.  26. — Epicurus.  The  founder  of  the  Epicurean  philosophy 
(see  W.  Wallace's  admirable  exposition  of  this  system).  He  was 
born  on  the  island  of  Samos  in  337.  or,  as  some  say,  in  341  B.C. 


300  NOTES. 

He  removed  to  Athens  about  307.  His  personal  character  was 
amiable  and  virtuous,  and  the  real  nature  of  his  philosophical 
teaching  has  been  commonly  misrepresented.     He  died  270  B.C. 

20.  26. — Diogenes  Laertius.  This  name  was  ascribed  to  a  kind 
of  scrap-book,  labeled  "Lives  and  Doctrines  of  Famous  Philo- 
sophers."    Of  Laertius  himself  we  know  nothing. 

20.  27. — Semiramis  [Legendary  and  Mythical].  The  wife  of 
Ninus,  founder  of  the  Assyrian  kingdom — a  woman  of  great 
beauty,  passion,  and  power.     She  is  supposed  to  have  flourished 

about  22CXD  B.C. 

20.  27. — Hesperides.  These  were  the  daughters  of  the  Night, 
who  guarded  the  golden  apples  belonging  to  Here  or  Juno.  [See 
any  Classical  Dictionary,  or  Professor  Gayley's  excellent  book, 
Classic  Myths  in  English  Literature,  published  by  Ginn  &  Co.] 

21.  I. — McTcenas.  Gaius  Cilnius  Maecenas,  born  between  74 
and  64  B.C.,  died  8  B.C.  He  was  a  statesman,  but  chiefly  famous  as 
a  patron  of  literary  men.  He  was  a  friend  of  young  Octavian  and 
his  most  trusted  counsellor.  He  created  and  formed  the  center  of  a 
literary  circle  at  Rome,  which  included  Vergil,  Horace,  and  others. 

21.  I. — Strabo.  A  Greek  geographer,  born  63  B.C.,  died  after 
21  A.D.  He  traveled  extensively,  wrote  histories,  and  particularly 
a  geography  in  seventeen  books. 

21.  3. — Pythagoras.  A  Greek  philosopher,  supposed  to  have 
been  born  at  Samos  about  582  B.C.  He  is  chiefly  known  on  account 
of  the  doctrine  of  the  transmigration  of  souls.  He  laid  the  greatest 
stress  on  simplicity  and  self-restraint  in  living, 

23.  I. — Bishop  Kettnet.  White  Kennett,  D.D.,  bishop  of 
Peterborough  (1660-1728).  Sir  Walter  Scott  published  this  de- 
scription of  Swift  from  a  MS.  in  the  British  Museum.  Scott  says  : 
"The  picture  is  powerfully  drawn,  though  with  a  coarse  and  in- 
vidious pencil." — Swift's  Works,  ed.  Scott,  I.  125. 

26.  4. — Bolinghroke.  Henry  St.  Jolm,  Viscount  Bolingbroke 
(1678-175 1).  His  philosophical  views  exerted  a  powerful  influence 
on  contemporary  men  of  letters  ;  shown  most  prominently  perhaps 
in  Pope's  Essay  on  Matt.  He  was  titled  in  1 7 12,  and  was  Prime 
Minister  in  17 14.     A  brilliant  and  rather  shallow  man. 

26.   13. — Gay.     The  well-known  poet  (1688-1732). 

28.  5. — Peccavi.     I  am  a  siimer. 


NO  TES.  y>l 

20.  8. — Consciottsnt'ss  of  his  own  scepticism.  We  shall  probably 
never  know  the  exact  attitude  of  Swift  toward  religious  dogmas — 
perhaps  he  did  not  know  himself.  His  mind  was  apparently- 
skeptical  by  nature,  but  he  abhorred  and  despised  free-thinkers, 
and  belaboured  them  soundly.  He  was  the  most  powerful  cham- 
pion of  Christianity  the  age  of  Anne  produced,  but  he  certainly 
derived  little  peace  and  consolation  from  it  for  his  own  suffering 
soul.  He  may  have  thought  that  the  Church  was  a  necessary 
social  institution,  and  hence  regarded  its  assailers  as  little  better 
than  anarchists.  At  times  we  are  inclined  to  class  him  as  a  skeptic, 
as  Thackeray  does  ;  but  when  we  read  his  beautiful  and  passionate 
"  Prayers  for  Mrs.  Johnson,"  we  have  to  make  many  reservations. 
29.  22.— Abttdah.  He  was  a  wealthy  merchant  of  Bagdad,  who 
figures  in  Tales  of  the  Genii,  by  James  Ridley  (1736-65).  Abudah 
meets  with  strange  adventures  in  his  quest  for  a  talisman  which  he 
is  driven  to  seek  by  the  threats  of  a  little  old  hag  who  haunts  him  by 
night  and  makes  his  life  miserable.  At  last  he  finds  that  the  inesti- 
mable talisman  is  to  obey  God  and  to  keep  his  commandments ;  and 
he  also  discovers  that  all  his  wonderful  adventures  have  been  only 
a  dream.  "And  there  too  was  Abudah,  the  merchant,  with  the  ter- 
rible old  woman  hobbling  out  of  the  box  in  his  bedroom. " — Dickens. 

20.   8. ScEva  indignatio.    "According  to  the  precise  instructions 

of  his  Will,  Swift  was  buried  privately,  on  the  22nd  of  October,  at 
twelve  o'clock  at  night:  and,  likewise  by  his  own  instructions,  on 
a  tablet  of  black  marble  over  his  grave  in  the  Cathedral,  in 
'large  letters,  deeply  cut,  and  strongly  gilded,'  there  were  in- 
scribed the  words — 

HIC   DEPOSITUM   EST   CORPUS 

JONATHAN    SWIFT,    S.  T.  P. 

HUJUS   ECCLESI^    CATHEDRALIS 

DECANI: 

UBI   S^VA    INDIGNATIO 

ULTERIUS    COR    LACERARE    NEQUIT. 

ABI    VIATOR 

ET   IMITARE,    SI    POTERIS, 

STRENUUM    PRO   VIRILI    LIBERTATIS    VINDICEM. 

OBIIT    ANNO    (1745) 

MENSIS    (OCTOBRIS)    DIE    (19) 

^TATIS   ANNO   (78)." 

—Craik's  Life  of  Swift,  II.  258. 


302  NOTES. 

Possibly  no  greater  contrast  in  tombstone  inscriptions  can  be 
found  than  that  exhibited  by  the  graves  of  Swift  and  of  his 
beloved  friend  and  contemporary  humourist,  Gay,  and  it  well 
illustrates  the  difference  in  temper  of  their  comic  genius.  Swift, 
in  his  final  and  terrible  indictment  against  the  sufferings  of  life, 
is  a  strange  contrast  to  Gay,  who  laughs  from  his  tomb  as  he 
laughed  through  life, 

"  Life  is  a  jest,  and  all  things  show  it. 
I  thought  so  once,  and  now  I  know  it." 

There  never  lived  a  more  consistent  pessimist  than  Swift,  and  it 
is  hardly  just  for  Thackeray  to  hint  that  Swift  rages  at  life 
because  of  his  personal  disappointments.  His  pessimism  went 
far  deeper  than  that. 

30.  17. — Drapier's  Letters.  The  first  of  these  letters,  signed 
"M.  B.  Drapier,"  appeared  in  1724;  they  were  addressed  to  the 
Irish  people,  and  immediately  exerted  a  powerful  influence.  He 
advised  them  not  to  touch  the  copper  money  coined  by  one  William 
Wood  ("  Wood's  half-pence  "},  who  received  a  Government  patent, 
July  12,  1722.  This  business  was  a  political  "job"  of  the  most 
perfidious  kind,  and  was  killed  by  Swift's  fiery  letters.  Whether 
Swift's  motive  was  pure  and  disinterested  patriotism  or  not.  we  do 
not  know.  He  raged  at  seeing  another  example  of  human  base- 
ness and  treachery,  and  fought  it  as»only  Swift  could  fight  when 
aroused.  At  any  rate  he  succeeded,  and  became  the  idol  of  the 
Irish,  who  rightly  looked  upon  him  as  their  champion.  For  a 
good  discussion  of  this  whole  matter,  see  Craik's  Life  of  S-ivift, 
Chapter  XHI,  "Swift  as  Irish  Patriot." 

30.  24. — Samson.     See  the  book  of  Judges,  Chapter  XV. 

31.  II. — Modest  Proposal.  This  famous  satire  was  published  in 
1729,  and  ranks  as  one  of  Swift's  best  pieces.  Underneath  the 
laughably  extravagant  "proposal,"  one  sees  the  moral  indignation 
and  the  moral  power  of  the  author.  Tlie  object  of  this  satire  was 
not  to  "rage  against  children";  it  was  to  show  that  many  Irish 
children  were  destined  to  a  worse  fate  even  than  being  eaten. 
For  mock  gravity,  sustained  tone,  and  underlying  tragic  earnest- 
ness, this  essay  is  unsurpassed  in  English.  Nor  does  Swift  always 
"rage  against   marriage."     In  \\\%  Letter  to  a  Very  Youtig  Lady 


NOTES.  303 

on  her  Marriage,  he  brutally  attacks  the  kind  of  marriages  that 
he  often  witnessed;  but  he  holds  up  a  high  idealof  what  marriage 
should  really  be,  and  emphasises  the  virtues  of  true  companion- 
ship. Swift's  brutality  and  contemptuous  manner  in  this  notable 
letter  does  not  wholly  conceal  from  the  judicious  its  solid  wisdom. 
32.  16.  —  ^^  Roasting."  This  slang  word  has  enjoyed  unusual 
vitality  and  long  life. 

32.  19. — On  nait  rotisseur.  One  is  born  a  cook — cooks  are 
born,  not  made. 

33.  27.  — Mr.  Macatday  has  quoted  the  charming  lines  of  the  poet. 
In  Macaulay's  Essay  on  Addison,  he  says,  "About  thirty  years 
before  '  Gulliver's  Travels '  appeared,  Addison  wrote  these  lines: — 

'  Jamque  acies  inter  medias  sese  arduus  infert 
Pygmeadum  ductor,  qui,  majestate  verendus, 
Incessuque  gravis,  reliquos  supereminet  omnes 
Mole  gigantca,  mediamque  exsurgit  in  ulnam.'  " 

["And  now  towering  he  rushes  forward  into  the  midst  of  their 
lines — this  awful  leader  of  the  Pygmies,  who,  heavy  in  his  gait, 
overtops  all  others  with  his  giant-like  bulk  and  rises  above  them 
half  an  ell."] 

34.  I.  —  The  mast  of  some  great  amtniral.  Paradise  Lost,  \.  2gT„ 
294. 

3^.  17.  —  Unpronounceable  country.  The  country  of  the  Hou- 
yhnhnms.  Perhaps  we  should  pronounce  the  word  "Whinnems," 
as  it  is  doubtless  meant  to  suggest  the  whinny  of  a  horse. 

35.  35. — Decision  of  meers.     Meer,  or  mere,  is  a  boundary. 
38.   29. — Drapier  Bickerstaff  Gulliver.     "  Bickerstaff  "  was  the 

name  assumed  by  Swift  in  his  famous  "Predictions"  in  ridicule 
of  Partridge,  the  almanac-maker. 

41.  24. — A  sentimental  Champollion.  Jean  Francois  Cham- 
pollion  (1790-1832),  a  famous  linguist,  discovered  a  key  to  hier- 
oglyphics of  ancient  Egypt. 

44.  I. — Harley's  and  Peterborough's.  Robert  Harley  was  the 
first  Earl  of  Oxford  and  Lord  High  Treasurer,  receiving  both  title 
and  place  from  Queen  Anne  in  17 11.  He  died  in  1724.  Charles 
Mordaunt,  Earl  of  Peterborough,  was  born  in  1658,  and  died  in 
1735- 


304  NOTES. 

45.  15. — Cadenus.    Of  course  an  anagram  for  Decanus  =  Dean. 

46.  14. — Ariadne.  The  daughter  of  Minos,  king  of  Crete,  and 
the  lover  of  Theseus.  She  gave  him  the  famous  clew  of  thread 
for  the  labyrinth.      See  Gayley. 

49.  19. — Sheridan.  Thomas  Sheridan  (1687-1738),  a  school- 
master and  close  friend  of  Swift.  The  latter  made  his  acquaintance 
in  1713,  upon  arriving  in  Dublin  to  take  the  Deanery.  He  became 
Swift's  constant  companion,  and  the  Dean  took  his  place  in  the 
school  when  Sheridan  was  ill.  Swift  got  him  a  living  in  1725. 
He  had  a  deserved  reputation  for  wit  in  conversation.  He  wrote 
of  himself,  "I  am  famous  for  giving  the  best  advice  and  following 
the  worst."  Swift  asked  Sheridan  to  let  him  know  when  he 
(Swift)  showed  any  sign  of  avarice.  Sheridan  accordingly  wrote 
full  data  on  a  paper,  and  gave  it  to  Swift.  This  alienated  the  two 
friends. 

49.  29. — The  extract  from  Voltaire's  letter  may  be  thus  trans- 
lated :  "Mr.  Swift  is  Rabelais  in  his  good  senses  and  in  good 
company.  He  has  not,  to  be  sure,  Rabelais'  mirth,  but  he  has  all 
the  keenness,  the  reasonableness,  the  discretion  in  choosing,  the 
good  taste  which  our  cur6  of  Meudon  has  not.  His  verses  have  a 
queer  savour,  and  are  all  but  inimitable  ;  tasteful  jesting  falls  to 
his  share  in  verse  and  in  prose  ;  but  to  understand  him  well  one 
should  take  a  trip  into  his  country." 

For  other  criticism  of  Swift  by  Thackeray,  see  Esmond,  Book 
III,  Chapter  V.  Esmond  says,  "  I  have  always  thought  of  him 
and  of  Marlborough  as  the  two  greatest  men  of  that  age." 

CONGREVE  AND  ADDISON. 

'51.  2. — Reform  Bill.  The  Reform  Bill  was  passed  in  i532. 
"In  its  final  shape  the  Reform  Act  absolutely  disfranchised  forty- 
one  boroughs  and  took  away  one  member  from  thirty  others. 
Thereby,  and  by  its  alteration  of  the  franchise,  it  accomplished  a 
great  transference  of  power,  in  favour  of  the  middle  classes  in  the 
towns.  Though  it  did  not  establish  a  democracy,  it  took  a  long 
step  in  that  direction."  (Gardiner's  5^«(/c^</ 'j  History  of  Eng- 
land, p.  905.) 


NO  TES.  305 

^I.  15. — Pitt.  William  Pitt  the  Younger,  a  great  parliamen- 
tary orator  and  statesman  (1759-1806). 

CI.  15. — Mirabemi.  Honore  Gabriel  Riquetti,  Count  ;  born 
1749,  died  1791.     A  great  orator  of  the  French  Revolution. 

^1.  21. — Old  Sariim.  This  place  returned  two  members  to 
Parliament.  It  was  "only  a  green  mound,  without  a  habitation 
upon  it."     {Gardiner.) 

52.  10.  — Prince  Eugene.  Frangois  Eugene  de  Savoie  (1663- 
1736).  A  great  general,  and  ally  with  Marlborough  against  Louis 
in  the  battle  of  Blenheim  in  1704.  He  was  originally  offended 
because  Louis  refused  to  give  him  a  commission  in  the  army  ; 
later  Louis  offered  to  make  him  a  marshal,  but  he  declined. 

52.  16.— Busby.  Richard  Busby  (1606-1695),  the  famous 
head-master  of  Westminster  school.  A  very  large  number  of  his 
pupils  reached  places  of  distinction.  Thackeray's  pun  is  on  the 
rod  of  Aaron,  which  budded  and  bore  almonds.  See  the  book  of 
Numbers,  xvii.  8. 

22.  \().—  Tickell.  Thomas  Tickell,  the  poet,  was  born  at 
Bridekirk,  Cumberland,  in  1686,  and  died  at  Bath,  in  1740.  He 
was  a  fellow  of  Oxford  and  a  contributor  to  the  Spectator. 

52.  19- — John  Dennis.  A  dramatic  scribbler  and  satirist.  He 
figured  in  many  literary  squabbles.  Pope  put  him  in  the  Dunciad. 
He  was  bom  in  London  in  1657,  and  died  1734- 

e3.  \z.—"-  Accourez"  etc.  "Hasten  hither,  chaste  nymphs  of 
Permessus !  Sounds  spring  from  my  lyre,  and  the  trees  are  re- 
joiced. Mark  well  their  rise  and  fall :  and  you,  winds,  be  still ! 
I  shall  speak  of  Louis  !  " 

63.  \i.—Boileau.  Nicholas  Boileau-Despreaux  (1636-1711). 
A  famous  man  of  letters,  who  exercised  an  enormous  influence 
on  French  literature,  and  powerfully  affected  English  literature 
during  the  age  of  Anne.  His  U Art  Poetique  (1674)  was  his  most 
influential  work. 

^3.  34. "In  England  literature  is  more  honoured  than  here." 

C4.    10. Poets'  -corner.     Did  this  suggest  to  Lowell  his  phrase 

for  similar  volumes,  "the  cemetery  of  the  British  poets  "  ? 

e^.  \'j.  — Charles  Montague  {\(i^\-\'l\^).  He  wrote  verses  and 
satirised  poets  and  artists.  He  was  made  First  Lord  of  the 
Treasury  in  1698. 


306  NO  TES. 

55.  I. — L'henretix  temps.  "O  the  happy  time  when  these 
fables  were !  " 

57.  12. —  Win's.  The  well-known  coffee-house  where  Dryden 
ruled  literary  London.     See  also  note  to  180,  28. 

58.  5-  —  The  beautiful  Br acegir die.  Anne  Bracegirdle  (1663?- 
1748),  a  famous  actress.  In  1693  she  made  her  appearance  in 
Congreve's  Old  Bachelor,  and  from  that  time  her  chief  suc- 
cesses were  attained  in  his  plays.  His  personal  relations  with  her 
were  the  talk  of  the  town,  but  her  high  reputation  for  virtue  has 
never  been  successfully  assailed,  though  she  had  enemies  in  her 
own  time  and  unfav<5urable  critics  since.  She  was  equally  notable 
for  her  beauty  and  for  her  great  benevolence.  ' '  Some  young 
gentlemen  of  the  town,  with  whom  Esmond  had  made  acquaint- 
ance, had  promised  to  present  him  to  that  most  charming  of 
actresses,  and  lively  and  agreeable  of  women,  Mrs.  Bracegirdle, 
about  whom  Harry's  old  adversary  Mohun  had  drawn  swords,  a 
few  years  before  my  poor  Lord  and  he  fell  out.  The  famous  Mr. 
Congreve  had  stamped  with  his  high  approval,  to  the  which  there 
was  no  gainsaying,  this  delightful  person  :  and  she  was  acting  in 
Dick  Steele's  comedies  and  finally,  and  for  twenty-four  hours  after 
beholding  her,  Mr.  Esmond  felt  himself,  or  thought  himself,  to  be 
as  violently  enamoured  of  this  lovely  brunette,  as  were  a  thousand 
other  young  fellows  about  the  city.  To  have  once  seen  her  was 
to  long  to  behold  her  again." — Thackeray's  Esmond,  Book  H, 
Chapter  V. 

59.  4. — Comic  Muse.  The  English  Comic  Drama  of  the  Restora- 
tion, from  1660  to  1700,  is  famous  for  its  brilliant  dialogue,  and 
for  its  audacious  immorality — being  in  the  latter  respect  worse 
than  England  has  had  to  endure  either  before  or  since  the  time  of 
Charles  II. 

59.  5. — Nell  G7V)'nn.  Eleanor  Gwyn  was  born  in  abject 
poverty  about  1650;  though  the  exact  year  of  her  birth  is  not 
definitely  known.  She  originally  frequented  the  theatres  as  an 
orange-girl.  When  fifteen  years  old  she  went  on  the  stage,  and 
made  a  decided  hit  in  song  and  dance.  Later  she  took  leading 
parts.  Pepys  admired  her  greatly;  "pretty  witty  Nell,"  he 
writes  under  date  of  April  3,  1665.  On  January  23,  1667,  he 
writes,  "  Knipp  took  us  all  in,  and  brought  to  us  Nelly,   a  most 


NO  TES.  307 

pretty  woman,  who  acted  the  great  part  of  Coelia  to-day  very  fine, 
and  did  it  pretty  well:  I  kissed  her,  and  so  did  my  wife  ;  and  a 
mighty  pretty  soul  she  is."  She  became  the  mistress  of  Lord 
Buckhurst,  and  in  1669  the  mistress  of  Charles  II.  In  167 1  she 
was  made  a  lady  of  the  privy  chamber  to  Queen  Catharine,  where 
her  beauty,  wit,  imperturbable  good-nature,  and  generosity  made 
her  popular.  She  assisted  her  old  friends  among  the  poor  actors 
and  actresses.  She  bore  two  sons  to  the  king  :  the  surviving  one 
was  made  Duke  of  St.  Albans.  In  1687  she  died.  Her  funeral 
sermon  was  preached  by  Dr.  Tenison,  afterwards  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury.  The  best  memoir  of  her  is  by  Peter  Cunningham 
(1850).  In  spite  of  her  well-known  character,  she  had  hosts  of 
friends  during  her  life,  and  not  a  few  panegyrists  since.  Anthony 
Hope's  novel,  Si>?ion  Dale^  gives  a  good  account  of  her  life, 
character,  and  of  the  times  in  which  she  lived. 

59  8-  —  Jeremy  Collier  (1650-1726).  His  Short  View  of  the 
Immorality  and  Profaneness  of  the  English  Stage  (1698)  had  an 
immense  influence  in  the  direction  of  the  long-needed  moral 
reform  ;  though  unfortunately  the  drama  that  followed  in  Queen 
Anne's  time  was  as  flat  as  it  was  harmless. 

60.  7- — Lais.  A  celebrated  Greek  courtesan,  born  at  Corinth 
about  180  B.C.  She  was  both  greedy  and  beautiful.  She  placed 
her  favours  at  such  a  figure  that  this  proverb  became  current : 
" Not  everybody  can  go  to  Corinth."  The  satirists  chided  her 
with  taking  to  drink  in  her  old  age.  There  was  another  person 
of  the  same  name  and  occupation  born  at  Sicily. 

61.  6.— Cicerone,  Italian  from  "Cicero,"  so  called  because  of 
the  officious  talkativeness  of  the  ordinary  guide. 

61.  27. — Cavalier  seul.      "  Gentleman  forward. " 

62.  23. — Poet  bids  his  mistress.  The  allusion  is  to  Herrick's 
famous  lyric,  beginning — 

"  Gather  ye  rosebuds  while  ye  may, 
Old  time  is  still  a-flying." 

62.  25.  —  Treillage.     Arbour. 
62.   30. — Pas.     Step. 

62.  32.  —  Chdlet.  A  little  Swiss  house  in  the  gingerbread  style, 
like  a  cuckoo  clock. 


308  NOTES. 

63.  25. — Segreto,  etc.     "  How  to  be  happy." 

63.  26. — Falernian.  The  most  celebrated  wine  of  the  ancient 
Romans.  There  were  three  varieties — light,  sweet,  and  dry.  It 
was  something  like  sherry. 

64.  10. — Mirabel  or  Bel'inour.  Mirabell  is  a  character  in  The 
Way  of  the  World,  and  Bellmour  figures  in  the  Old  Bachelor. 

64.  12. — Scapin  and  Frontin.  Scapin  is  a  rascally  valet  in 
Moliere's  comedy,  Les  Foiirheries  de  Scapin.  Frontin  is  a  person- 
age of  the  old  comedy;  a  bold  valet,  a  saucy,  witty  intriguer,  as 
his  name  indicates,  meaning  "cheeky."  He  gets  control  of  his 
master,  whom  he  is  good  enough  to  protect  in  the  pranks  where 
effrontery  is  the  trump-card. 

64.  14. — Chivalry  story.  For  a  good  account  of  this  species 
of  the  English  novel,  see  Professor  Cross's  excellent  book.  The 
Developtnent  of  the  English  Novel,  Chapter  I. 

65.  2. — Millamant.     Mrs.    Millamant  appears  in    The  Way  of 
■  the  World. 

69.  5. — Richelieu  at  eighty.  Richelieu  was  born  in  1585,  and 
died  in  1642,  but  Thackeray  is  merely  using  a  strong  figure. 

69.  9.  —  Grammonf s  French  dandies.  Philibert,  Count  de 
Grammont  (1621-1707).  He  served  in  the  French  armies,  and 
was  famous  for  his  intrigues.  His  Memoires  (1713)  were  published 
by  his  brother-in-law.  He  took  part  in  the  siege  of  Lerida  in 
1647.  Lerida  is  the  capital  of  the  province  of  Lerida,  Spain,  and 
is  the  key  of  Aragon  and  Catalonia  ;  hence  a  strategic  point  in 
military  manceuvres.  Grammont,  or  Gramont,  as  the  French 
spell  the  name,  dictated  his  famous  Me'moires  at  the  age  of  eighty. 
%  72.  34.  —  Cehd,  etc.  '-Of  all  the  English  the  man  who  has 
carried  the  glory  of  the  comic  drama  furthest  is  the  late  Mr.  Con- 
greve.  He  wrote  only  a  few  pieces,  but  they  are  all  excellent 
specimens  of  their  class.  .  .  .  You  see  everywhere  the  language  of 
honest  men  who  act  like  scoundrels  ;  which  proves  that  he  thor- 
oughly understood  the  people  with  whom  he  lived,  and  that  he 
moved  in  what  is  called  good  society." 

74.  32. — Shadwell.  Thomas  Shadwell  (1642  ?-92),  the  poet- 
laureate,  and  dramatist  contemporary  with  Dryden.  He  is 
scarcely  read  at  all  to-day,  and  is  remembered  only  because  Dryden 
attacked    him    so   wittily    in   MacFlecknoe,  and  in  Absalom  and 


NOTES.  309 

Achitophel.     In  the  latter  poem  Shadwell  appears  under  the  name 
of  "  Og,"  and  is  unmercifully  belaboured. 

74.  32. — -Higgons.  Bevil  Higgons  (1670-1735),  a  verse-writer 
and  historian  who  is  all  but  forgotten  to-day.  He  prefixed  some 
lines  to  Congreve's  Old  Bachelor,  pointing  to  Congreve  as  the 
rightful  heir  to  Dryden's  position.  He  also  wrote  one  or  two 
plays  himself. 

74-  37- — Love  each  other  better.  Thackeray's  quarrel  with 
Dickens  began  in  1858. 

75.  II. — Lonely  ones  of  the  world.  Hardly  a  felicitous  criticism  * 
to  apply  to  the  author  of  the  Spectator ;  nor  should  he  be  classed/ 
among  the  "lords  of  intellect." 

y5.  17. — Goethe.  On  April  28,  1855,  Thackeray  wrote  a  letter 
to  G.  H.  Lewes,  describing  a  personal  interview  he  had  enjoyed 
as  a  young  man  with  the  great  Goethe,  and  how  he  "  went  away 
charmed  from  the  great  king's  audience."  See  the  "  Biographical 
edition  of  Thackeray, "  XIII.  640. 

77.  I. —  The  ingenious  Mr.  Pinkethnian.  In  the  Spectator  oi 
Ma^y  5.  1 7 12,  No.  370,  we  read:  "The  Petulancy  of  a  peevish 
old  Fellow,  who  loves  and  hates  he  knows  not  why,  is  very  excel- 
lently performed  by  the  Ingenious  Mr.  William  Penkethinan  in  the 
Fop' s  Fortune ;  where,  in  the  Character  of  Don  Cholerick  Snap 
Shorto  de  Testy,  he  answers  no  Questions  but  to  those  whom  he 
likes,  and  wants  no  account  of  anything  from  those  he  approves. 
...  If  it  be,  as  I  have  heard  it  sometimes  mentioned,  a  great 
Qualification  for  the  World  to  follow  Business  and  Pleasure  too, 
what  is  it  in  the  Ingenious  Mr.  Penkethman  to  represent  a  Sense 
of  Pleasure  and  Pain  at  the  same  time  ;  as  you  may  see  him  do 
this  Evening?"  (Spectator,  H.  Morley's  edition,  II.  595.)  This 
number  of  the  Spectator  was,  however,  written  by  Steele. 

77.  3. — Mr.  Doggett,  the  actor.  The  comic  actor,  ^Thomas 
Doggett,  is  several  times  alluded  to  in  the  Spectator ;  he  was  an 
actor,  playwright,  and  manager,  but  gained  his  chief  reputation 
on  the  stage.  His  especial  part  was  "  Hob"  in  his  own  solitary 
play.   The  Country  Wake.      He  died  in  1721. 

77.  4. — Don  Saltero.  This  is  merely  a  name  for  a  mounte- 
bank, but  here  Addison  may  be  alluding  to  Don  Saltero's  coffee- 
house in  Cheyne  Walk,  Chelsea. 


3IO  NOTES. 

78.   5. —  The  Charterhouse.     One  of  the  most  famous  schools  in 
England.     Men  sadifferent  as  John  Wesley  and  the  historian  Grotc 
have  been  numbered  among  its  pupils,  as  well  as  Thackeray  him- 
self. 

78.  9. — "  The  Pigmies  and  the  Cranes."  See  note  to  page  33. 
The  Pygmies  were  a  nation  of  dwarfs,  who,  according  to  Greek 
and  Roman  mythology,  dwelt  on  the  banks  of  the  Upper  Nile. 
They  were  attacked  and  defeated  every  spring  by  the  Cranes. 
Addison's  own  title  of  his  poem  is,  '' nTFMAlO-TEFANO- 
MAXIA,  sive,  Praelium  (so  in  Tickell's  edition)  inter  Pygmasos  & 
Grues  commissum." 

78.  14. — LyiTus.     A  Greek  adjective  applied  to  Bacchus. 

79.  25. — Congees.     Formal  leave-takings. 

83.  2. — Statins.  Publius  Papinius  Statius  was  born  about  45 
A.D.  and  died  about  96.  His  most  famous  work  was  Thebaidos 
Libri  XII.     The  first  book  was  translated  by  Pope. 

83.  9. — Blenheim.  For  the  great  Duke  and  his  victories,  see 
£smond,  where  his  military  campaigns  are  most  graphically  de- 
scribed. 

83.  10, — 3Ir.  Boyle.  Henry  Boyle,  Lord  Carleton,  died  in 
1725. 

83.  12. — Lord  Treasurer  Godolphin.  Sidney  Godolphin.  first 
Earl  of  Godolphin  (1645-1712).  "Few  statesmen. in  so  conspicu- 
ous a  position  have  left  so  feeble  a  personal  impression  upon 
politics."     (Diet.  Nat.  Biog.) 

84.  II. — Commissioner  of  Appeals.  Thackeray  also  describes 
this  episode  in  Esmond,  Book  II,  Chapter  XI.  The  student  should 
certainly  read  in  connection  with  the  lecture  on  Addison,  this 
chapter  in  Esmond,  called  "Tiie  Famous  Mr.  Joseph  Addison." 

88.  15. — Jeffreys.  George  Jeffreys,  First  Baron  Jeffreys  (1648 
-89).  He  was  made  Lord  Chief  Justice  of  England  in  1683.  His 
pitiless  brutality  on  the  bench  in  condemning  prisoners  to  execu- 
tion has  made  his  name  a  synonym  for  cruelty.  Personally  he 
was  scurrilous,  violent,  dissipated,  and  time-serving. 

90.  I.- — Prisciati  s  head.  A  celebrated  Latin  grammarian,  who 
flourished  about  500  a.d. 

92.  12.  —  '■'■Grecian."  A  famous  coffee-house  of  Queen  Anne's 
time.     The  "Devil  "  Tavern  was  not  far  from  the  "  Mitre." 


NOTES.  311 

QA,  6. — A  propos  de  bottes.  Literally  "  casks  "  (of  wine).  Any- 
thing irrelevant. 

04.  8. — Doll  Ti-ar sheet.  A  character  in  Shakspere's  King 
Henry  IV,  Part  II. 

g^.  21. — Soon  as  the  evening  shades  prevail.  These  sixteen  lines 
form  the  second  and  third  stanzas  of  a  poem  by  Addison,  that 
appeared  in  the  Spectator  for  August  23,  17 12  (No.  465).  The 
last  line  should  be  in  quotation-marks,  and  in  H.  Morley's  edition 
of  the  Spectator,  the  31st  line  of  our  text  reads,  "What  tho' 
nor  real  voice  nor  sound."  The  two  stanzas  should  of  course  be 
separated,  and  not  printed  as  they  are  in  our  text,  which  follows 
the  Biographical  Edition,  which  in  turn  shows  some  differences  in 
this  quotation  from  the  first  edition  of  the  Htinwurists.  The  poem 
begins  with  the  well-known  words,  "The  spacious  firmament  on 
high." 

q5_  17. — Note  the  fine  literary  and  dramatic  contrast  between 
the  conclusion  of  the  lecture  on  Addison  and  of  that  on  Swift. 
It  beautifully  illustrates  Thackeray's  conception  of  the  character 
of  each  man. 

STEELE. 

97.  24. — Swift's  History  of  the  times.  The  History  of  the  Foyr 
Last  Years  of  the  Queen  was  not  published  till  1758.  Swift  took 
great  pains  in  its  composition,  but  never  printed  it. 

gg.  5  — Walpole.  Sir  Robert  Walpole  (1676-1745),  created 
Earl  of  Orford  in  1742.  As  Whig  Prime  Minister,  from  172 1  to 
1742,  he  practically  ruled  England.  He  kept  his  power  partly 
by  the  free  use  of  bribes,  but  he  used  it  for  the  best  interests  of 
the  country,  devoting  all  his  energies  to  maintaining  peace  and 
building  up  a  sound  financial  system — two  of  the  highest  aims  of 
statesmanship. 

^8.  9. — Copious  archdeacon.  "The  best  life  of  Marlborough 
is  still  the  tii--some  but  exhaustive  Memoirs  by  Archdeacon  Coxe 
(3  vols.,  1818-19)."  {Did.  Nat.  Biog.)  William  Coxe  (1747-1828) 
pul)lisfied  a  series  of  memoirs  that  are  careful,  industrious,  and 
uninspired. 

08.  30. —  Ttirpin.  Dick  Turpin  was  born  in  Essex,  and  was 
originally  a  butcher.     Afterwards  he  became  a  noted  highway- 


312  NOTES. 

man,  and  was  finally  executed  for  horse-stealing,  April  lo,  1739. 
He  and  his  steed  Black  Bess  are  well  described  in  W.  H.  Ains- 
worth's  Rookwood,  and  in  his  Ballads. 

99-  I3- — Doctor  Smollett.  Tobias  Smollett,  the  famous  novelist, 
whom  Thackeray  discusses  in  a  lecture  to  follow,  studied  medicine 
and  was  a  surgeon's  mate  in  the  navy. 

100.  I. —  Will  Wimble.  A  famous  character  in  the  Sir  Roger  de 
Coverley  papers  in  the  Spectator. 

100.  21. — Raviillies  and  Malplaqtiet.  Two  battles  in  Flanders, 
where  the  French  were  beaten  by  the  English  and  Dutch  under 
Marlborough.  See  Book  II  of  Esmond.  The  battle  of  Ramillies 
was  fought  in  May  1706,  and  Malplaquet  on  September  11,  1 709. 

101.  18. — Coram  latrotiibtis.      In  the  presence  of  robbers. 

102.  30. — My  Lord  Mohim.  One  of  the  fastest  men  of  his  day. 
He  is  a  prominent  character  in  Esmond,  where  his  character  is 
fully  anatomised.  See  particularly  Book  I,  chapters  XII,  XIII, 
and  XIV,  where  Thackeray  shows  wonderful  dramatic  power  in 
narrative  composition. 

106.  23. —  Waver  ley  novels  appeared.  The  first  of  these, 
JVaverley,  came  out  in  1814. 

106.  25. —  The  Miss  Porters,  the  Anne  of  Swanseas,  and  worthy 
Mrs.  Radcliffe  herself.  Jane  Porter  (1776-1850)  published  her  two 
most  famous  books,  Thaddens  of  Warsaw  and  The  Scottish 
Chiefs,  in  1803  and  1810  respectively. 

"  Anne  of  Swansea  "  was  Anne  Hatton,  sister  of  Mrs.  Siddons  ; 
she  published  eleven  novels  during  the  years  1815-31.  These 
novels  fill  fifty-two  volumes,  showing  their  vogue  in  the  early  part 
of  the  century;  but  so  totally  is  their  author  forgotten  to-day,  that 
her  name  does  not  appear  in  any  of  the  well-known  works  of 
reference,  and  she  even  enjoys  the  rare  distinction  of  receiving  no 
mention  in  the  Dictionary  of  National  Biography.  To  escape 
notice  in  that  work  is  fair  proof  of  oblivion.  The  title  of  one  of 
her  stories  is  a  sample  of  all — Cesario  Rosalba ;  or,  the  Oath  of 
Vengeance  (5  vols.,  London,  1819).  Thackeray  has  apparently 
made  a  slip  in  speaking  of  her  as  one  of  the  predecessors  of  Scott; 
she  was  really  one  of  his  followers,  both  in  time  and  in  manner. 

In  Notes  and  Queries,  Fourth  Series,  VI.  408,  November  12,  1870, 
there  is  the  following  account  of  "Anne  of  Swansea,"  which,  as 


NO  TES.       ■  313 

information  about  her  is  now  so  scarce,  is  certainly  worth  quoting 
in  full:     "Mrs.    Hatton,   the    sister  of  J.    P.   Kemble,   and  Mrs. 
Siddons,  resided  for  many  years  and  died   in  Swansea.     For  a 
considerable  period  of  her  later  life  she  had  been  confined  to  her 
house  by  an  accident  which  disabled  her  from  the  future  exercise 
of  her  profession  on  the  stage,  and  she  received  an  annuity  jointly 
contributed  by  her  brother  and  sister,  Mr.  John  Kemble  and  Mrs. 
Siddons.      This  annuity  was  at  one  period  withdrawn  under  the 
following   circumstances :     Mrs.    Hatton   wrote   a   work    in   three 
volumes  entitled  Chronicles  of  Gooselake,  in  other  words.  Annals 
of  Swansea  ;  also  some  brochures,  in  which  several  of  the  leading 
residents  of  that  day,  believing  themselves,  whether  justly  or  not. 
to  be  the  objects  of  satirical  allusion,  addressed  to  Mr.  Kemble  a 
request  that  he  would  use  his  influence  to  induce  his  sister  to 
desist  from  further  proceedings  of  this  kind.      His  letter  of  ex- 
postulation had  the  effect  of  arousing  the  Kemble  blood  in  this 
high  spirited  lady,  eliciting  from  her  the  reply  that  she  would  not 
continue  to  accept  the  annuity  subject  to  any  conditions  or  inter- 
ference with  her  free  action  ;    the    correspondence   resulting,   as 
stated    before,    in    the    aimuity    being    withdrawn.       During    its 
suspension    Mrs.    Hatton    was    reduced    to    considerable    straits, 
earning  an  inadequate  livelihood  from  the  precarious  results  of 
authorship.     On  one  occasion,  being  so  occupied  while  confined 
to  her  bed  by  illness,  an  acquaintance  called,  and  was  so  affected 
by  the   scene   presented  that  he   at  once  and  unknown  to   Mrs. 
Hatton  represented  her  case  to  Mr.  Kemble,  who,  to  his  honour, 
immediately  and  unconditionally  caused  the  annuity  to  be  restored. 
For  many  years  she  was  in  the  habit  of  periodically  receiving  a 
circle  of  friends,  whom  she  entertained  by  readings  of  uncommon 
power    and    pathos    from    various    dramatic    and    other    works, 
together  with  an  almost  endless  repertoire  of  anecdotes,  principally 
derived  from  her  own  acquaintance  and  observation  of  scenes  and 
persons  eminent  and  interesting  in  their  day.     I  was  often  one  of 
her  guests  on  these  occasions.     The  only  memento  in  Swansea  of 
this  lady  that  I  am  aware  of  is  contained  in  the  collection  of  the 
Swansea  Museum — a  cast  of  her  head." 

Ann  Radcliffe  (1 764-1 823)  wrote  romances  of  mystery,  follow- 
ing in  the  wake  of  Horace  Walpole's  Castle  of  Otraftta  (1764). 


314  •        NOTES. 

Her  most  famous  liook,  whicli  is  still  readable,  was  the  Mysteries 
of  Udolpho  (1794).  This  style  of  composition,  which  once  enjoyed 
wide  popularity,  was  cleverly  ridiculed  by  the  great  realist  Jane 
Austen,  in  Northanger  Abbey  (1818).  For  further  information 
about  Mrs.  Radcliffe,  see  Professor  Cross's  book,  previously  men- 
tioned. 

106,  31. — Mrs.  Mnnlcy.  Mrs.  Mary  de  la  Riviere  Manley 
(1652  P-I724),  was  a  playwright,  novelist,  and  scandal-monger, 
whose  own  reputation  was  not  far  in  advance  of  that  of  many  of 
her  characters.  Her  most  famous  Ijook  was  Secret  Memoirs  and 
Manners  of  Several  Persons  of  Quality^  of  both  Sexes.  From  the 
New  Atalantis.  Seven  editions  were  published.  On  account  of 
the  slanders  in  this  book  she  was  arrested.  Although  Swift  had 
attacked  her  in  the  Tatler  (No.  63),  he  afterwards  became  her 
friend,  and  helped  her  in  some  of  her  compositions.  This  explains 
Thackeray's  expression,  "Swift's  coadjutrix."  Notice  that  the 
name  of  the  book  mentioned  above  is  not  "Atlantis,"  as  given  in 
the  text,  but  "Atalantis."  Perhaps  the  most  commonly  misspelled 
name  in  the  language,  next  to  "Jacques"  for  Shakspere's 
"Jaques,"  is  "Atlanta"  for  "Atalanta."  It  seems  as  though 
"Atalantis"  needed  only  more  currency  to  enjoy  the  same  bad 
eminence. 

107.  I. —  Tom  Diafcy.  Thomas  D'Urfey  (1653-1723),  affec- 
tionately known  as  "Tom,"  was  a  playwright,  verse-writer,  and 
editor  of  ballad  miscellanies.  His  liest-known  production  is  Pills 
to  Purge  Melancholy,  six  volumes  of  merry  and  very  licentious 
ballads,  published  in  1719-20.  Though  D'Urfey  was  a  good  deal 
of  a  buffoon,  and  often  wrote  obscenely,  there  was  in  his  nature 
something  that  attracted  the  very  best  men  to  him,  for  so  pure- 
minded  a  man  as  Addison  spoke  of  him  in  terms  of  the  warmest 
affection,  and  he  was  a  general  favourite  wherever  he  went. 

107.  I. —  Tom  Brotvn.  Thomas  Brown  (1663-1704)  was  a 
school-teacher,  journalist,  and  hand-to-mouth  writer.  He  was  a 
dissipated  man,  and  wrote  very  coarse  satires.  His  humourous 
sketches  of  low  life  are,  however,  valuable.  He  was  buried  in 
the  cloisters  of  Westminster  Abbey,  near  his  friend  Mrs.  Aphra 
Behn. 

107.    I. — Ned  Ward.     Edward  Ward,  born  about  1660,  was  for 


NOTES.  315 

many  years  a  noted  tavern-keeper  and  poet  in  London.  He  died 
in  1731.  The  London  Spy  appeared  1698-1700,  and  was  published 
complete  in  eighteen  parts  in  1753.  Its  chief  distinction  was  its 
coarse  humour. 

113.  12.  —  '■^Christian  Hero."  This  was  published  in  1701, 
the  title  reading  as  follows  :  "  The  Christian  Hero  :  an  Argument 
proving  that  no  Principles  but  those  of  Religion  are  sufficient  to 
make  a  great  Alan."  For  Steele's  career  as  a  soldier,  see 
Esmond. 

122.  17. — '■'■  Advice  to  a  very  Young  Married  Lady."  See  our 
note,  on  this  letter,  to  page  31.  Thackeray  looks  at  the  matter 
from  only  one  point  of  view,  and  that  not  the  right  one. 

127.  16. — jfonson.  Query-Tonson  ?  It  is  Jonson  in  the  first 
edition. 

128.  2. — Artless  as  a  child's  prattle.  They  are  probably  more 
amusing  to  us  than  they  were  to  the  recipient. 

130.  10. — Addison  sold  the  house  and  furniture.  See  Prof.  G. 
R.  Carpenter's  Introduction  to  his  edition  of  Steele  (Athenaeum  Press 
Series),  page  37.  This  story  circulated  freely  in  Dr.  Johnson's 
time,  and  was  given  added  currency  by  Macaulay  ;  but  it  lacks 
proof,  and  is  very  likely  apocryphal.  Steele  wrote  to  his  wife 
under  date  of  August  20,  1708:  "I  have  paid  M""  Addison  His 
whole  thousand  pound  and  have  settled  every  man's  payment 
except  one  which  I  hope  to  perfect  tomorrow."  This  letter 
apparently  refers  to  a  previous  loan  ;  for  a  fuller  discussion  of  the 
story  of  the  sale  than  is  found  in  Carpenter,  see  Aitken's  Life  of 
Steele,  II,  342-344- 

131^  12. — Doctor  John  Hoadly.  He  was  the  youngest  son  of  the 
well-known  Bishop,  Benjamin  Hoadly,  and  was  born  in  London 
on  October  8,  17 11,  and  died  March  16,  1776.  He  became  a 
clergyman  so  as  to  avail  himself  of  the  fine  livings  he  could 
obtain  through  his  father's  influence.  Nor  was  he  disappointed 
in  this  ;  for  after  a  good  push  by  the  Bishop,  he  rose  from  one 
preferment  to  another,  holding  on  to  all  of  them  till  his  death. 
His  real  interest,  however,  was  in  the  drama;  he  wrote  several 
plays,  and  hobnobbed  with  theatrical  people.  The  passage  quoted 
by  Thackeray  may  be  found  in  John  Nichols's  Epistolary  Corre- 
spondence of  Sir  Richard  Steele,    London,    1809,    II.    508,   note, 


3l6  NOTES. 

wliere  it  is  given  as  "extracted  from  a  letter  written  by  Dr.  John 
Hoadly." 

igi.  19. —  The  4th  November.  William  was  born  at  The  Hague 
on  November  4,  1650,  and  was  married  to  Princess  Mary  of  York, 
on  November  4,  l677- 

132.  7- — Mr.  Joseph  JMilier.  An  actor,  commonly  called  "Joe 
Miller";  born  1684,  died  1738.  His  reputation  really  came  after 
his  death.  John  Mottley,  in  1739,  compiled  a  book  called  Joe 
Miller's  Jests.     It  was  very  popular,  but  not  authentic. 

135.  7. — Terrible  lines  of  Swift.  From  Swift's  short  poem  The 
Day  of  yudginent .  In  the  standard  edition  of  Swift,  edited  by  Scott, 
these  lines  are  given  in  Volume  XIV,  page  259,  and  they  differ 
in  a  number  of  minor  details  from  the  version  in  Thackeray's  text. 
Swift  never  published  them  ;  they  were  found  among  his  MSS., 
and  appeared  in  a  letter  from  Lord  Chesterfield  to  Voltaire,  dated 
August  27,  1752. 

137.  8. —  The  first  sense  of  sorrow.  Dick  Steele  himself  nar- 
rates this  episode,  in  almost  exactly  the  same  words,  to  Harry 
Esmond.      See  Esmond,  Book  I.  Chapter  VI. 

140.  20. —  The  Barmecide's.  From  the  Arabian  Nights.  A 
prince  of  the  Barmecide  family  set  an  imaginary  meal  before  a 
hungry  man,  who  pretended  to  eat.  Thus  to  share  in  a  "Barme- 
cide "  meal  is  like  dining  with  Duke  Humphry — one  eats  only  in 
imagination.     Dickens  uses  the  expression,  "  a  Barmecide  feast." 

143.  25. — Beignets  d'abricot.  Apricot  fritters. — Dn  monde 
means  "in  good  society." 

Although  no  one  could  speak  more  appreciatively  or  affection- 
ately of  Steele  than  Thackeray  does  in  this  lecture,  he  has 
certainly  made  him  out  to  be  much  less  respectable  than  he  really 
was.  Steele  was  not  nearly  so  reckless  nor  so  dissipated  as 
Thackeray  represents  him.  Perhaps  for  this  very  reason,  the 
actual  Steele  was  less  interesting  and  picturesque. 

PRIOR,   GAY,  AND  POPE. 

149.  6. — Spielhaus.       Gaming-house. 

149.  6. — Bobbing  for  perch.     The  "  bob  "  is  the  floater. 

149.    10. — Batavian  Chloe.     When   Holland  was  conquered  by 


NOTES.  317 

the  French  in  1795,  a  new  government  was  set  up,  called  the 
"  Batavian  Republic." 

I^Q,  g_ — Alcaics.  Perhaps  the  best  English  verses  in  this  metre 
are  Tennyson's  lines  to  Milton,  beginning 

"  O  mighty-moulh'd  inventor  of  harmonies, 
O  skiird  to  sing  of  Titne  or  Eternity, 
God-gifted  organ-voice  of  England, 
Milton,  a  name  to  resound  for  ages." 

A.lcaeus  was  a  lyric  poet  of  Mytilene,  who  flourished  about  600 
B.C.  One  variety  of  this  classic  metre  consists  of  verses  of  five 
feet,  the  first  a  spondee,  or  sometimes  an  iambic,  the  second  an 
iambic,  the  third  a  long  syllable,  and  the  fourth  and  fifth  dactyls. 
It  is  an  exceedingly  difficult  metre  to  handle  successfully  in 
English. 

I^l.  13. — Mahomet's  coffin.  Mahomet's  coffin  was  supposed  to 
be  suspended  in  mid-air  without  support.  Some  accounted  for 
this  by  a  theory  of  an  iron  coffin  with  magnets  ;  and  there  were 
various  hypotheses,  until  one  man  decided  to  visit  it  and  see  for 
himself;  then  the  mystery  was  explained  :  it  was  n't  suspended  at 
all. 

152.  4. — Spence.  Joseph  Spence  (1699-1768).  His  Anecdotes 
were  published  in  1820,  and  are  at  once  delightful  reading  and 
an  invaluable  source  of  reference  for  all  students  of  eighteenth - 
century  literature. 

152.  II. — Long  Acre.  A  street  in  the  western  part  of  London, 
between  Hyde  Park  and  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields.  It  was  celebrated 
for  its  coach-makers,  and  also  for  its  low  resorts.  See  Pepys,  ed. 
Wheatley,  IV.  41. 

152.  II. — Johnson.     See  note  to  page  155,  line  2.  , 

123.  5.  —  Their  modern  air.  Prior's  songs  have  had  a  consider- 
able influence  on  the  minor  verse  of  our  own  day.  The  lighter 
pieces  of  Frederick  Locker,  Andrew  Lang,  Edmund  Gosse,  and 
others,  show  plainly  the  manner  of  Prior. 

1^3.  7. — Oivner  of  the  Sabine  farm.  Horace,  who  owned  a 
fine  country  seat  in  the  Sabine  mountains. 

153.  8,  31. —  Verses  addressed  to  Halifax.  Not  only  has 
Thackeray  "ingeniously  transposed  the  order  of  these  verses," 


3l8  NOTES. 

but  the  first  stanza  does  not  occur  in  the  original  at  all,  and  the 
second  is  not  correctly  quoted.     In  the  original  it  reads, 

"  Our  Hopes,  like  tow'ring-  Falcons,  aim 
At  Objects  in  ati  airy  height  : 
The  little  Pleasure  of  the  Game 
Is  from  afar  to  view  the  Flight." 

—  To  the  Honourable  Charles  Montague.     Boemj 
on  Several  Occasions.     London,  1718,  folio. 

The  stanza  that  Thackeray  quotes  first  is  not  in  this  poem,  and  I 
have  not  succeeded  in  finding  it  anywhere  in  the  poems  of  Prior. 
In  the  first  edition  of  the  Humourists,  the  "whilst"  in  the  first 
line  reads  "when." 

153-  '2-0.— Verses  of  Chloe.  The  stanzas  quoted  are  the  last 
three  of  Prior's  poem,  A  Better  Answer.  Prior  spelled  "Cloe," 
not  "Chloe."  And  it  is  spelled  "Cloe"  in  the  first  edition  of 
the  Humourists. 

153-  32- — In  the  metre  made  familiar.  Alluding,  of  course,  to 
Tennyson's  In  Memoriam  (1850),  then  in  the  first  flush  of  its 
fame. 

154.  14.  —  ''She  sighed,  she  smiled.'"  These  are  the  last  four 
stanzas  of  Prior's  poem,   The  Garland. 

154-  31- — '' Deus  sit,"  etc.  "May  God  be  good  to  this 
drinker." 

155-  'i-'—'iValter  de  Mapes.  Map,  Mapes,  or  Mapus,  Walter,  a 
renowned  churchman,  politician,  and  wit  of  the  twelfth  century. 
He  was  of  Welsh  descent,  "Map"  being  Welsh  for  "son."  He 
was  probably  a  native  of  Herefordshire,  and  during  his  life  was 
largely  associated  with  the  city  of  Hereford,  though  he  wrote  in 
French  and  Latin.  He  was  born  about  1140,  and  as  a  youth 
went  to'studyat  Paris,  returning  to  England  before  1162.  He 
was  a  close  friend  of  Henry  II.,  employed  by  him  at  court,  and 
given  important  positions  in  the  Church.  He  died  about  1209. 
"Map"  is  the  correct  spelling  of  his  name,  for  he  spells  it  that 
way  himself.  We  learn  most  of  the  facts  of  his  life  from  his  work, 
De  Ntigis  Ciirialium  (Courtiers'  Triflings).  He  has  always  en- 
joyed a  great  reputation  for  his  supposed  share  in  the  creation  of 
the  legends  of  the  Round  Table  ;  M.  Paulin  Paris  believes  him  to 
have  been  the  author  of  the  prost  Lancelot,  including  the  S.  Graal, 


NOTES.  319 

and  Morte  Arthur.  M.  Gaston  Paris,  however,  ascribes  none  of 
it  to  Map.  For  a  discussion  of  this  question,  see  Diet.  Nat.  Biog., 
art.  Map.  He  seems  to  have  written  a  number  of  satirical  poems 
against  ecclesiastical  abuses,  though  many  were  formerly  ascribed 
to  him  which  are  not  now  believed  to  be  his.  In  fact,  just  what  he 
did  and  did  not  write  are  favourite  matters  of  discussion  among 
scholars.  In  Tennyson's  play,  Becket,  Walter  Map  appears  as  a 
character  who  strenuously  endeavors  to  furnish  a  comic  element. 

^55'  ^' — Johnson,  who  spoke  slightitigly  of  Prior  s  verses. 
"Mrs.  Thrale  disputed  with  him  on  the  merit  of  Prior.  Heat- 
tacked  him  powerfully,  said  he  wrote  of  love  like  a  man  who  had 
never  felt  it  ;  his  love  verses  were  college  verses;  and  he  repeated 
the  song  'Alexis  shunn'd  his  fellow  swains,'  &c.,  in  so  ludicrous 
a  manner,  as  to  make  us  all  wonder  how  any  one  could  have 
been  pleased  with  such  fantastical  stuff.  Mrs.  Thrale  stood  to 
her  gun  with  great  courage,  in  defence  of  amourous  ditties,  which 
Johnson  despised,  till  he  at  last  silenced  her  by  saying,  '  My  dear 
Lady,  talk  no  more  of  this.  Nonsense  can  be  defended  but  by 
nonsense.'" — Boswell's  Johnson,  ed.  Hill,  II.  89. 

jcg.  4. — Craggs.  James  Craggs  the  Younger  (1686-1721), 
Secretary  of  State.  He  was  mixed  up  in  the  South  Sea  Company. 
He  died  of  the  smallpox,  and  his  coffin  rests  on  that  of  his  friend 
Addison  in  Henry  VII's  chapel.  Addison  wrote  a  letter  on  his 
death -bed,  dedicating  his  works  to  Craggs. 

ido  4. — Mr.  Gay's  '■^  Fables."  The  first  series  of  Gay's /vz^^/^j 
was  published  in  1727.  The  Dedication  ran  as  follows  :  "To  his 
Highness  William,  Duke  of  Cumberland,  these  new  Fables,  in- 
vented for  his  amusement,  are  humbly  dedicated  by  his  High- 
ness's  most  faithful  and  most  obedient  servant,  John  Gay."  Wil- 
liam Augustus  (1721-1765),  the  Duke  of  Cumberland,  the  third 
son  of  George  II.,  was  of  course  a  mere  child  when  the  Fables 
were  dedicated  to  him. 

jg,.  6. — Dettingen.  A  Bavarian  village  on  the  Main.  On 
June  27,  1743,  the  Austrians,  Hanoverians,  and  English  under 
George  II.  defeated  a  larger  French  force  there.  This  was  the 
last  time  that  an  English  king  took  personal  command  of  an  army 
in  battle. 

ifi-i,   7. — Culloden  is  in  Scotland,  six  miles  E.N.E.  of  Inverness. 


3^0  NOTES, 

Here  the  royal  army,  commanded  by  the  Duke  of  Cumberland, 
totally  defeated  the  young  Pretender,  on  the  i6tli  of  April  1746. 
Cumberland  was  censured  for  cruelty  in  this  battle.  Thackeray's 
use  of  the  word  "amiable"  is  characteristic. 

163.  14.  —  ^^  Shepherd's  week."  Published  in  1714.  The  Tri- 
via  appeared  in  17 15. 

163.  19. — Minikin.  Thackeray  apparently  uses  this  word  in 
the  sense  in  which  Schmidt  says  it  is  used  in  Shakspere.  See 
Lear,  III.  vi,  45  : 

"  And  for  one  blast  of  thy  minikin  mouth, 
Thy  sheep  shall  take  no  harm." 

Schmidt  defines  the  word  as  "small  and  pretty."  It  is  somewhat 
doubtful,  however,  if  this  is  an  exact  definition.  The  word  occurs 
only  once  in  Shakspere;  but  in  Lovelace's  poem,  Ellinda's  Glove, 
we  find 

"  For  though  the  lute's  too  high  for  me. 
Yet  servants,  knowing  minikin  nor  base, 
Are  still  allow'd  to  fiddle  with  the  case." 

The  minikin  was  a  little  pin,  for  high  notes,  used  only  by  very 
clever  musicians.  It  would  seem  that  this  might  explain  the 
Shaksperian  use  of  the  word  better  than  Schmidt's  interpretation. 
163.  24. — Bird-organ.  "A  small  barrel-organ  used  in  teach- 
ing birds  to  whistle  tunes." — Century  Dictionary. 

163.  31. — Bergamot.     A  perfume  from  a  fruit  tree. 

164.  I. — Philips.  Ambrose  Philips  (1671-1749).  He  was 
called  by  his  contemporaries  "namby-pamby"  Philips,  which 
distinguished  him  from  the  poetaster  John  Philips,  who  wrote  at 
the  same  time.  His  Pastorals,  which  Thackeray  here  has  in 
mind,  were  published  in  1709. 

164.  25. — Rubini.  Giovanni  Battista  Rubini,  a  great  Italian 
tenor,  was  born  at  Romano,  province  of  Bergamo,  in  1795?  and 
died  near  there  in  1854.  He  was  therefore  still  living  when 
Thackeray  wrote  this  passage  about  him.  His  fame  began  early 
and  was  soon  enormous.  He  went  to  Paris  in  1825,  where  he 
played  the  part  of  Romiro  in  Cenerentola.  Later  he  traveled 
over  much  of  Europe  with  uniform  tremendous  success.  He  be- 
came the  master  singer  of  the  continent.     The  harsh  climate  of 


NOTES.  3-1 

Russia  injured  his  voice;  lie  resolved  to  retire,  and  finally  ended 
his  days  on  the  magnificent  estate  which  his  voice  had  enabled 
him  to  buy. 

164.  2^.-r-'Jui^  avail,  etc.      "That  he  had  tears  in  his  voice." 

165.  2. — In  the  '■'■  Beggar  s  Opera''  and  in  its  7vearisome  con- 
titiiiation.  J.  Underhill,  in  the  introduction  to  his  edition  of  Gay 
(Muses'  Library  edition,  p.  li),  remarks,  "it  may  virith  perfect 
truth  be  said  that  it  is  the  first  '  popular '  success  known  to  the 
history  of  the  English  stage."  The  "wearisome  continuation" 
was  the  sequel  which  Gay  wrote,  called  Polly.  The  satire  in  this 
was  so  evident  that  the  authorities  prohibited  its  performance;  but 
so  great  was  the  interest  taken  in  any  continuation  of  the  Beggar's 
Opera  ^  that  Polly  had  an  enormous  sale. 

j68.  17.  —  The  greatest  name  on  oiir  list.  It  will  be  remembered 
that  at  the  conclusion  of  the  lecture  on  Szvift,  Thackeray  re- 
marked, "We  have  other  great  names  to  mention — none  I  think, 
however,  so  great  or  so  gloomy."  Lecturers  are  sometimes  care- 
less in  the  use  of  adjectives. 

168.  26. —  llie  greatest  literary  artist.  In  the  sense  of  polish 
and  absolute  finish.  Pope  was,  no  doubt,  a  great  artist;  but  apart 
from  genius  and  inspiration,  and  judging  only  from  the  standpoint 
of  skill  in  handling  verse  forms,  Milton  was  a  far  greater  artist 
than  Pope.  We  sometimes  make  the  mistake  of  assuming  that 
the  highest  genius  is  necessarily  unaccompanied  by  lack  of 
technical  skill  :  Shakspere  and  Milton  are  conspicuous  instances 
to  the  contrary. 

jyo.  24. — Ariosto.  His  great  poem,  the  Orlando  Furioso, 
which  has  exercised  so  profound  an  influence  on  the  literature  of 
the  world,  was  published  in  15 16. 

1.70.   24. Battling  with  the  Cid for  the  love  of  Chimene.     The 

Cid  was  and  is  a  Spanish  hero.  The  original  Cid  was  one  Ruy 
(Rodrigo)  Diaz  de  Bivar,  a  great  baron.  He  was  born  about 
1040,  and  died  in  1099  at  Valencia,  which  he  rescued  from  the 
Moors.  Five  Moorish  kings  are  said  to  have  named  him  "Cid" 
(derived  from  the  Arabic  Sid-y)  for  being  their  lord  and  conqueror. 
He  became  the  chief  figure  of  Spanish  ballad  literature  :  and 
was  made  the  leading  character  of  two  plays  by  Guillem  de 
Castro,  a  Spanish  poet  (1569-1631).     From,  these  plays  Corneille, 


322  NOTES. 

the  famous  French  dramatist,  obtained  his  inspiration  and  much 
of  his  material  for  Le  Cid,  a  tragi-comedy  that  appeared  in  1636. 
The  substance  of  the  plot  of  this  play  is  as  follows  :  Don  Gomes, 
stung  to  jealousy  because  Don  Diegue  has  been  made  -tutor  of  the 
king's  son  (the  Infant)  provokes  Don  Diegue  to  great  anger  ;  a 
quarrel  ensues,  and  Gomes  smites  the  feeble  Don  Diegue.  Unable 
to  avenge  his  injury,  the  old  man  appeals  to  his  son,  Don  Rodri- 
gue,  who  challenges  and  slays  Don  Gomes.  Now  Don  Rodrigue 
is  in  love  with  Chimene,  the  daughter  of  Don  Gomes,  who, 
despite  her  tender  passion  for  the  young  warrior,  demands 
vengeance  of  Ferdinand  the  king  for  her  father's  death.  The 
whole  play  turns  upon  the  struggle  between  her  loyalty  to  her 
slain  father  and  her  love  for  the  man  who  has  slain  him.  Her 
anguish  is  great,  but  she  is  after  all  a  woman.  She  offers  a 
condition  to  Don  Rodrigue,  which  he  fulfills  by  winning  great 
victories.  Even  then  Chimene  does  not  immediately  yield  :  the 
Cid  again  departs  in  pursuit  of  glory,  after  which  he  may  return 
and  possess  her. 

170.  26. — Armida  s  garden.  Armida  '  is  one  of  the  most 
prominent  characters  in  Tasso's  yernsalem  Delivered.  Her  story 
is  founded  on  a  tradition  related  by  Pierre  Delancre.  "The 
poet  tells  us,  that,  when  the  Crusaders  arrived  at  the  Holy  City, 
Satan  held  a  council  to  devise  some  means  of  disturbing  the  plans 
of  the  Christian  warriors,  a:;id  Armida,  a  very  beautiful  sorceress, 
was  employed  to  seduce  Rinaldo  and  other  crusaders.  Rinaldo 
was  conducted  by  Armida  to  a  remote  island,  where,  in  her 
splendid  palace,  surrounded  by  delightful  gardens  and  pleasure- 
grounds,  he  utterly  forgot  his  vows  and  the  great  object  to  which 
he  had  devoted  his  life.  To  liberate  him  from  his  voluptuous 
bondage,  two  messengers  from  the  Christian  army.  Carlo  and 
Ubaldo,  came  to  the  island,  bringing  a  talisman  so  powerful  that 
the  witchery  of  Armida  was  destroyed.  Rinaldo  escaped  [not  a 
very  accurate  expression] ,  but  was  followed  by  the  sorceress,  who, 
in  battle,  incited  several  warriors  to  attack  the  hero,  and  at  last 
herself  rushed  into  the  fight.  She  was  defeated  by  Rinaldo 
[because  after  all  she  was  only  a  weak  woman] ,  who  then  con- 
fessed his  love  to  her,  persuaded  her  to  become  a  Christian,  and 


NOTES.  323 

vowed  to  be  her  faithful  knight.     The  story  of  Armida  has  been 
made  the  subject  of  an  opera  by  both  Gluck  and  Rossini." 

"  'Twas  but  a  doubt;  but  ne'er  magician's  wand 
Wrought  change  with  all  Armida^s  fairy  art 
Like  what  this  light  touch  left  on  Juan's  heart." 

— Byron. 
"The  stage  (even  as  it  then  was),    after  tlie  reclnseness  and 
austerity  of  a   college   life,    must   have   appeared  like  AnniJa's 
enchanted  palace." — Hazlitt. 

"The  grand  mansions  you  arrive  at  in  this  waste,  howling 
solitude  prove  sometimes  essentially  robber- towers;  and  there 
may  be  Armida  palaces  and  divine-looking  Arinidas,  where  your 
ultimate  fate  is  still  worse." — Cari.yle. 

The  above  quotation  with  the  illustrations  is  taken  from 
Wheeler's  Dictionary  of  the  Noted  Names  of  Fiction.  The  Geru- 
salemme  Liberata  of  Torquato  Tasso  (1544-1595)  appeared  in 
1581. 

172.  10. — A  deux  fins.  With  two  endings.  Rtfrhaitff^  med.r\% 
"  warmed  up." 

173.  2. — Apprct/.      "Cooked  up." 

177.   3. — Cachet.     Literally  "seal."     An  air  of  distinction. 

I'jg.  I. — More  illustrious.  Possibly  the  Mermaid  Tavern,  a 
century  earlier,  with  Shakspere  and  Jonson  and  the  other  dra- 
matists, might  compare  favorably  with  this. 

I^Q.  5. —  White's.  In  the  first  number  of  the  7rt /At,  April  12, 
1709,  Steele  says,  "All  accounts  of  gallantry,  pleasure,  and  enter- 
tainment shall  be  under  the  article  of  White's  Chocolate-house. " 
This  famous  resort  stood  in  St.  James's  Street,  and  in  the  early 
days  of  the  eighteenth  century  it  had  a  wide  reputation  as  a 
gambling  place  for  men  of  fashion.  Note  Hogarth's  Rake's 
Progress,  Part  iv. 

lyg,  6. —  The  ^^  Patriot  A'itig."  This  was  written  by  Boling- 
broke  in  Deceml)er,  1738,  in  a  highly  rhetorical  style.  Chester- 
field said  that  until  he  read  this  piece  he  did  not  know  "the 
extent  and  power  of  the  English  language."  (Works,  1845,  i. 
376),  quoted  in  Diet.  N'at.  Biog.,  art.  St.  John.  Without  the 
author's  consent,  and  against  his  will.  Pope,  who  did  so  many 
underhand  and  disgraceful  things,  secretly  printed  1500  copies  of 


3^4  NOTES. 

The  Patriot  King.  In  1844,  very  soon  after  Pope's  death,  which 
occurred  that  year,  Bolingbroke  discovered  that  Pope  had  done 
this  :  he  was  very  indignant,  and  had  a  correct  edition  published 
that  contained  a  preface  said  to  be  by  David  Mallet,  which 
attacked  Pope.  This  brought  on  a  fierce  literary  controversy. 
These  facts  form  an  interesting  comment  on  Thackeray's  state- 
ment (p.  178),  "I  know  nothing  in  any  story  more  gallant  and 
cheering  than  the  love  and  friendship  which  this  company  of 
famous  men  bore  towards  one  another."  Furthermore,  while 
"a  pretty  fellow  from  White's"  doubtless  "could  not  have 
written"  The  Patriot  King,  it  is  altogether  probable  that  he 
would  not  have  published  it  in  so  underhand  a  manner,  "and 
would  very  likely  have  despised  little  Mr.  Pope  "  for  doing  it. 

170.  10. — Have  7von  Barcelotia.  Barcelona  was  taken  by  the 
Earl  of  Peterborough  in  the  autumn  of  1705.  The  circumstances 
under  which  the  town  was  assailed,  and  by  which  Peterborough 
got  the  sole  credit  for  the  victory,  form  an  interesting  chapter  in 
military  annals.  For  a  good  account,  see  Diet.  A\jt.  Biog.  art. 
Charles  Mordaiint. 

180.  28. — "  Wilfs."  In  the  Tatler  Steele  dated  his  accounts 
of  poetry  from  this  coffee-house.  Pepys  visited  the  famous  resort 
for  the  first  time  on  February  3,  1664.  "In  Covent  Garden  to-nigbt. 
going  to  fetch  home  my  wife,  I  stopped  at  the  great  Coffee-house 
there,  where  I  never  was  before;  where  Dryden  the  poet  (I  knew 
at  Cambridge),  and  all  the  wits  of  the  town,  and  Harris  the 
player,  and  Mr,  Hoole  of  our  College,  And  had  I  had  time  then, 
or  could  at  other  times,  it  will  be  good  coming  thither,  for  there, 
I  perceive,  is  very  witty  and  pleasant  discourse.  But  I  could  no^ 
tarry,  and  as  it  was  late,  they  were  all  ready  to  go  away."  Diary ^ 
ed.  Wheatle}^  IV.  30.  This  tavern  was  originally  called  the 
"Rose,"  but  the  name  was  changed  to  "Will's"  after  William 
Urwin,  the  landlord. 

181.  15. — Budgell.  Eustace  Budgell  (1686-1737),  was  one  of 
the  contributors  to  the  Spectator,  and  shared  Addison's  lodgings 
for  a  time. 

181.  15. — Carey.  Henry  Carey,  a  poet  and  musician.  Pope 
said  he  was  one  of  Addison's  "little  senate."  His  best-known 
poem  is  Sally  in  our  Alley.     He  was  said  to  have  been  an  ille- 


NOTES.  325 

gitimate  son  of  the  Marquis  of  Halifax.  Hawkins  says  he  killed 
himself.      His  death  occurred  in  1743. 

181.  17. — Duroc.  Gerard  Christophe  Michel  Duroc,  Duke  of 
Friuli  (1772-1813).      A  favourite  officer  of  Napoleon. 

181.  17. — Hardy.  Sir  Thomas  Masterman  Hardy,  Vice  Ad- 
miral (i769«-i839).  He  entered  the  navy  in  1781,  and  was  con- 
spicuous for  gallantry  in  action.  He  was  captain  of  the  "Victory  " 
at  the  great  battle  of  Trafalgar  (1805),  and  attended  Nelson  in  his 
dying  hours. 

181.  Z'i,-~Spadillc  and  Afanille.  Spadillc  is  the  ace  of  spades 
in  the  Spanish  game  called  hombre,  or,  as  the  English  Augustans 
spelled  it,  "ombre."  The  leading  features  of  this  game  are  well 
brought  out  in  Pope's  Knpe  of  the  Lock.  Manille  is  also  a  term 
in  "ombre,"  "quadrille,"  and  "tri."  In  black  it  is  the  deuce, 
and  in  red  the  seven  of  the  colour  on  which  one  is  playing. 
There  is  another  game  of  cards  in  which  the  nine  of  diamonds 
(which  is  called  "manille")  takes  the  value  chosen  by  him  who 
has  the  nine  spot.  "Quadrille"  refers  to  the  fact  that  four 
persons  are  playing  ombre:  "tri"  to  the  fact  that  three  are 
playing. 

183.  I. — That  doting  old  wit.  We  know  now  that  Pope's 
account  of  how  he  assisted  Wycherley  is  false  :  the  correspondence 
that  was  published  as  having  passed  between  them  was  doctored 
by  Pope,  making  it  practically  a  forgery.  By  the  way,  one  of 
Pope's  most  famous  phrases — "damn  with  faint  praise"  (given 
on  page  186  of  our  text} — was  stolen  from  Wycherley.  In  the 
prologue  to  Wycherley's  play,  The  Plain  Dealer  (1677),  we  find 
the  line,  "And  with  faint  praises  one  another  damn." 

183.  7. — Addison  s  triumph  of  "  Cato."  For  a  good  account  of 
the  success  of  this  play,  and  the  causes  of  it,  see  Mr.  Thomas 
Sergeant  Perry's  admirable  work,  English  Literature  in  the 
Eighteenth  Century,  chapter  v. 

184.  14.  —  The  best  satire.     Thackeray  quotes  it  on  page  186. 

185.  3. — Bernadotte.  His  original  name  was  Jean  Baptiste 
Jules  Bernadotte.  He  was  born  in  1764,  and  died  in  1844.  He 
ruled  as  Charles  XIV  of  Sweden.  Napoleon  made  him  a  marshal 
of  France  in  1804,  but  he  afterwards  quarreled  with  his  master 
because  the  latter  censured  his  conduct  at  the  battle  of  Wagram 


326  NOTES. 

(1809).  In  1810  the  Swedish  Diet  elected  Bernadotte  heir  to  the 
throne,  as  old  Charles  XIII  had  no  son.  His  reign  began  in 
18 18,  though  he  had  exercised  great  power  long  before. 

185.  18. — Did  Air.  Addison,  etc.  For  a  full  account  of  the 
quarrel  between  Addison  and  Pope,  see  the  Diet.  A'at.  Biog. 

186.  17.  —  ^'  And  were  there  one,"  etc.  These  lines  are  taken 
from  Pope's  Epistle  to  Dr.  Arbnthnot,  and  are  perhaps  from  the 
purely  artistic  point  of  view  the  most  skilful  work  Pope  ever  did, 
and  must  rank  among  the  masterpieces  of  English  satire.  Curi- 
ously enough,  while  Pope  intended  in  this  passage  to  draw  a 
picture  of  Addison,  he  not  only  totally  failed  to  do  that,  but  uncon- 
sciously drew  the  best  portrait  of  himself  that  the  world  has  ever 
seen.  Curses  and  chickens  are  not  the  only  things  that  come 
home  to  roost.  Nearly  all  the  leading  features  of  Pope's  character 
are  most  accurately  set  forth  in  this  attack  upon  Addison. 

The  punctuation  of  this  famous  passage  as  given  in  the  Bio- 
graphical Edition  of  Thackeray's  English  Humourists,  page  546, 
is  very  bad,  though  it  differs  in  a  few  details  from  the  first  edition.  * 
There  are  two  errors  also,  which  occur  in  the  first  edition  and  are 
copied  in  the  Biographical:  the  "  and  "  in  line  17  should  be  "but," 
and  the  "as"  in  line  29  should  be  "or."  Pope  also  wrote 
"ev'n"for  "even"  in  line  31.  Our  text  follows  the  Biographical 
except  in  obvious  typographical  errors;  I  have  therefore  printed 
this  passage  exactly  as  it  appears  there;  l;ut  any  reader  can  easily 
make  the  necessary  improvement  in  punctuation. 

188.  13.  —  Thomson.  James  Thomson,  familiarly  called 
"Jemmy,"  the  well-known  poet,  and  author  of  the  Seasons  (1726- 
1730).  He  was  born  in  1700,  and  died  in  1748.  His  dissipated 
habits  were  a  matter  of  common  gossip. 

189.  8. — Atterbury.  Francis  Atterbury,  the  famous  bishop 
(1662-1732).  His  correspondence  is  interesting.  He  is  one  of 
the  characters  in  Esmond,  and  hears  Lord  Castlewood's  dying 
confession.     See  Esmond,  Book  I,  chapter  xiv. 

189.  20.  —  IVith  the  exception  0/ Swift.  Why  except  Swift  ?  Up 
to  the  time  of  his  leaving  London,  he  was  certainly  one  of  the  orna- 
ments of  polished  society,  and  few  men  were  more  sought  after 
than  he. 

189.   22.  —  Garth.      Sir  Samuel  Garth  was  born    in    1661,   and 


NOTES.  327 

died  on  January  18,  1719,  not  1718,  as  the  foot-note  in  the  text 
gives  it.  His  poem,  the  Dispensary,  appeared  in  1699,  and  by 
1741  had  reached  its  tenth  edition.      It  ridiculed  the  apothecaries. 

190.  I. —  Steele  has  described.  Steele  dedicated  his  periodical, 
The  Lover,  to  Garth  in  the  most  affectionate  language,  saying 
that  he  did  not  know  whether  his  love  or  admiration  for  Garth 
was  the  greater,  and  the  dedication  began  as  follows  :  "As  soon 
as  I  thought  of  making  the  Lover  a  Present  to  one  of  my  Friends, 
I  resolved,  without  further  distracting  my  Choice,  to  send  it  To 
the  Best-natiired  Man.  You  are  so  universally  known  for  this 
Character,  that  an  Epistle  so  directed  would  find  its  Way  to  You 
without  your  Name,  and  I  believe  no  Body  but  You  yourself 
would  deliver  such  a  Superscription  to  any  other  Person." 

190.  2. — Codrington.  Christopher  Codrington  (1668-1710),  is 
identified  with  All  Souls'  College,  Oxford,  to  which  he  left  an 
endowment  that  founded  and  maintained  a  splendid  library.  He 
was  a  prominent  general  under  King  William.  His  allusion  to 
Garth,  quoted  in  the  text,  is  taken  from  lines  that  he  sent  to  Garth 
about  the  Dispensary,  which  include  the  following  :  / 

"  Thou  hast  no  faults,  or  I  no  faults  can  spy, 
Thou  art  all  beauty,  or  all  blindness  I." 

190.  3. —  The  best  of  Christians.  \nVo'pe' s  Fareweil  to  London 
(1715)  we  find 

"  Farewell,  Arbuthnot's  raillery 
On  every  learned  sot; 
And  Garth,  the  best  good  Christian  he, 
Although  he  knows  it  not."— (Stanza  4.) 

191.  10. — Jerzias.  Charles  Jervas  or  Jarvis  (1675  ?-i739),  was 
born  in  Ireland.  He  lived  with  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller  for  a  year, 
and  was  a  famous  portrait  painter.  He  was  especially  fond  of 
the  society  of  literary  men.  Although  he  does  not  seem  to  have 
known  much  Spanish,  he  made  a  translation  of  Don  Quixote,  the 
chief  interest  of  which  lies  in  the  discussion  it  caused  as  to  how 
much  Spanish  its  maker  really  knew,  a  question  that  has  never 
been  settled  to  the  complete  satisfaction  of  everyone.  Jervas,  like 
so  many  other  persons  mentioned  in  the  Humourists,  figures  in 
Esmond.  "She  must  have  his  picture  taken;  and  accordingly 
he  was  painted  by  Mr.  Jervas,  in  his  red  coat,  and  smiling  upon 


328  NOTES. 

a  bombshell,   which  was  bursting  at  the  corner  of  the    piece." 
Estnond,  Book  II,  chapter  xv. 

191.  II. — Richardson.  Jonathan  Richardson  (1665-1745),  a 
painter  who  made  honest  and  trustworthy  likenesses,  but  whose 
work  shows  no  genius.     He  was  an  intimate  friend  of  Pope. 

192.  4. — Kjteller.  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller,  whose  original  name 
was  Gottfried  Kniller,  was  born  at  Liibeck  in  North  Ger- 
many in  1646.  About  1675  he  went  to  London,  and  painted 
portraits  for  Charles  II  and  others.  King  Louis  XIV  also  sat 
for  him.  He  was  the  principal  court  painter  for  William  III, 
one  of  his  most  famous  pictures  being  the  equestrian  portrait  of 
William,  now  at  Hampton  Court.  He  painted  Queen  Anne, 
George  I  and  his  son,  and  in  1715  was  made  a  baronet.  He 
did  an  enormous  amount  of  work,  and  amassed  great  wealth. 
Ten  reigning  sovereigns  sat  to  him,  which  makes  his  prodigious 
vanity  somewhat  excusable.      He  died  in  1723. 

194.   22. — His  faithful  dog. 

"  But  thinks,  admitted  to  that  equal  sky, 
His  faithful  dog  shall  bear  him  company." 

— Essay  on  Man,  i.  iii,  112. 

196.  3. — The  fa7}ious  Greek  picture.  This  refers  to  the  cele- 
brated painting  of  the  Sacrifice  of  Iphigenia,  by  Timanthes,  a 
Greek  painter  who  flourished  about  400  B.C.  We  know  nothing 
of  his  life,  but  Pliny  said  that  he  possessed  the  art  of  expressing 
human  passion  more  than  any  other  artist.  He  suggests  more 
than  he  shows.  In  the  picture  alluded  to,  the  grief  of  Calchas, 
Ulysses,  and  Menelaus  is  shown  in  their  faces.  Agamemnon 
has  his  face  covered. 

197.  22. — Gibbers  pamphlets.  Colley  Cibber  (1671-1757),  one 
of  the  most  notable  if  not  notorious  figures  connected  with  litera- 
ture and  the  stage  in  the  eighteenth  century.  He  was  a  play- 
wright, an  actor,  a  vigorous  controversial  writer,  and  a  rake.  In 
1730  lie  was  appointed  poet-laureate.  In  the  quarrel  that  took 
place  between  him  and  Pope,  posterity  has  decided  that  justice  is 
on  the  side  of  Cibber,  though  unfortunately  he  was  no  match  for 
Pope  in  a  wit  combat.  Pope  finally  made  him  the  hero  of  the 
Dunciad  in  place  of  Theobald.  Cibber  had  a  hand  in  the  compo- 
sition of  some  thirty  plays;  he  was  an  excellent  comedy  actor,  one 


NO  TES.  329 

of  the  best  theatrical  managers  the  English  stage  has  known,  and 
must  rank  in  the  very  first  class  as  a  dramatic  critic.  His  Apol- 
ogy for  the  Life  of  Mr.  Colley  Cither  (1740),  an  important  and 
valuable  book,  is  written  with  great  skill,  and  is  essential  to  those 
who  would  understand  tl:e  history  of  the  stage  in  the  eighteenth 
century.  In  spite  of  Gibber's  many  strong  and  (some)  great 
qualities,  he  was  often  regarded  by  his  contemporaries,  especially 
by  his  enemies,  as  a  mere  fool.  He  had  weaknesses  and  affectations. 
198,  15. —  Tibbald.  Lewis  Theobald  (pronounced  and  some- 
times spelled  Tibbald),  was  bom  in  i688,  and  died  in  1744,  the 
same  years  as  his  bitter  antagonist,  Pope.  He  was  slow,  rather 
pedantic,  and  as  a  poet  dull  and  worthless.  But  it  was  not  for 
his  bad,  but  for  his  good  qualities,  that  Pope  hated  him.  In  1725 
Pope  published  an  edition  of  Shakspere,  a  work  for  which  he  was 
by  no  means  fitted.  Theobald  shortly  pointed  out  many  errors  in 
this  edition,  at  the  same  time  making  most  valuable  comments  and 
wonderfully  felicitous  emendations  of  the  text.  Many  of  these 
Pope  adopted  in  his  second  edition,  with  unblushing  falsehoods 
about  the  amount  of  his  debt.  Then  he  proceeded  to  make  poor 
Theobald  the  hero  of  the  Dunciad,  thus  holding  him  up  to  the 
ridicule  of  the  whole  town,  which  did  not  spare  him.  Theobald 
was  no  match  for  Pope  in  controversy,  but  he  answered  him  in  a 
much  more  effectual  way  by  bringing  out  in  1734  his  own  edition 
of  Shakspere,  which  in  scholarship  and  value  completely  eclipsed 
Pope's.  In  the  long  list  of  Shaksperean  editors  and  commentators 
Theobald's  is  to-day  one  of  the  most  honored  names.  His  famous 
emendation  of  the  folio  reading,  "a  Table  of  green  fields', 
(Henry-  V,  II,  iii.  17)  by  '-a'  babbled  of  green  fields"  is  a  stroke 
of  genius,  and  whether  Shakspere  wrote  it  or  not,  it  is  certainly 
worthy  of  the  great  dramatist  at  his  best.  "In  the  union  of 
learning,  critical  acumen,  tact,  and  good  sense  he. has  perhaps 
no  equal  among  Shakespearean  commentators." — Churton  Collins, 
Diet.  Nat.  Biog.,  art.   Theobald. 

198.    16.  —  Welsted.     Leonard  Welsted  (1689-1747)  also  figured 
in  the  Dunciad. 

"Flow,  Welsted,  flow!  like  thine  inspirer,  beer; 
Though  stale,  not  ripe;  though  thin,  yet  never  clear  ; 


330  NOTES. 

So  sweetly  mawkish,  and  so  smoothly  dull; 
Heady,  not  strong;  o'erflowing,  though  not  full." 

— (Book  III.  vs.  170.) 

Pope  is,  of  course,  parodying  the  well-known  lines  in  Cooper's 
Hill  by  the  poet  Denham.  Welsted  had  incurred  the  enmity  of 
Pope  by  satirising  the  play  Three  Hours  after  Marriage,  written 
by  Gay,  Arbuthnot,  and  Pope. 

198.  18. — Grttb  Street.  This  was  near  Moor  Fields.  It  was 
well  known  in  Pope's  day  as  the  headquarters  of  poor  literary 
hacks.  The  name  was  used  as  an  uncomplimentary  epithet, 
however,  by  the  enemies  of  Foxe,  the  writer  on  martyrs,  who 
lived  there  in  the  early  days  of  Elizabeth.  Hare  calls  attention 
to  the  curious  fact  that  the  present  name  of  this  thoroughfare, 
•'Milton  Street,"  was  named  after  a  builder,  and  not  after  the 
great  poet,  though  the  place  is  "full  of  memories  of  him."  In 
the  Dunciad,  we  find 

"  Not  with  less  glory  mighty  Dulness  crown'd. 
Shall  take  through  Grub  Street  her  triumphant  round." 

—(Book  III.,  vs.  135,  6.) 

198.  31. — Curh's  authors.  Edmund  Curll  (1675-1747),  an  ener- 
getic, clever,  and  utterly  unscrupulous  book-seller  and  publisher. 
He  quarrelled  with  Pope  for  twenty  years.  For  Pope's  transactions 
with  him,  which  form  one  of  the  dirtiest  chapters  in  the  history 
of  letters,  and  now  that  the  truth  is  known,  have  completely  ruined 
Pope's  reputation  for  personal  honor,  see  the  Elwin-Courthope 
edition  of  Pope's  works,  where  the  whole  business  is  given  in 
detail.     Curll  was  unmercifully  ridiculed  in  the  Dunciad. 

199.  I. — Petty  France.  This  was  a  street  which  took  its  name 
from  the  number  of  French  Protestants  that  came  for  refuge 
thither  in  1635.  It  was  afterward  called  York  Street,  from  the 
Duke  of  York,  the  son  of  George  III.  Milton's  house,  where  he 
lived  with  Andrew  Marvell  as  private  secretary,  stood  on  this 
street.  It  was  destroyed  in  1877,  and  according  to  Hare  '•with- 
out a  voice  being  raised  to  save  it." — Walks  in  London,  II.  402. 

199.  2. — Budge  Rozv.  This  was  in  the  very  heart  of  London, 
near  Watling  Street.  It  was  "  so  called  from  the  sellers  of  Budge 
(lamb-skin)  fur."— (Hare,  I.  328.) 


NOTES.  331 

200.  17. — She  comes,  she  conies!  Four  lines  are  omitted  in 
this  quotation.  After  line  32,  "Shrinks  to  her  second  cause  and 
is  no  more,"  there  should  appear 

"  Physic  of  Metaphysic  begs  defence, 
And  Metaphysic  calls  for  aid  on  Sense  ! 
See  Mystery  to  Mathematics  fly  ! 
In  vain  !  they  gaze,  turn  Riddy,  rave,  and  die." 

These  four  lines  are  also  omitted  in  the  first  edition  of  the 
Huntotirists.  The  Biographical  edition  corrects  one  error  in  the 
first  edition,  which  read  "Faith  "  for  "Truth  "  in  line  29.  But 
both  editions  have  the  false  reading  "fell"  in  line  27,  where  the 
Dunciad  reads  "felt."  Our  text,  of  course,  followrs  the  Bio- 
graphical edition. 

201.  9.  —  The  equal  of  all  poets  of  all  times.  This  is  of  course 
mere  hyperbole. 

201.  28. — Pope  s  adrnir able  career.  Had  Thackeray  known  as 
much  about  this  career  as  we  do  to-day,  he  would  doubtless  have 
revised  this  statement.  In  fact,  all  of  this  glowing  peroration 
would  be  excellent,  if  we  could  only  take  it  ironically.  As  a  sober 
estimate,  it  fits  Pope  about  as  well  as  it  would  Judas  Iscariot. 

HOGARTH,    SMOLLETT,    AND   FIELDING. 

203.  4- — A  virtuous  and  gallant  hero.  Compare  this  and  what 
follows  with  the  title  of  Thackeray's  great  novel,  "Vanity  Fair: 
a  Novel  without  a  Hero,"  which  certainly  was  and  is  "a  greatly 
popular  story." 

203.  15. — I  fajicy  very  few  ladies.  Just  what  books  women, 
or  "  ladies  "  as  they  were  called  in  1850,  do  and  do  not  like  would 
be  a  difficult  matter  to  settle,  to  explain,  or  to  analyse.  Thacke- 
ray is  probably  right  in  suggesting  that  Swift  and  Fielding  are 
not  favourite  writers  with  women.  Mrs.  Oliphant,  in  confessing 
her  inability  to  agree  with  Carlyle's  high  estimate  of  Burns's 
Jolly  Beggars,  says  that  perhaps  it  is  impossible  for  a  refined 
woman  to  appreciate  properly  productions,  no  matter  how  power- 
ful, that  contain  passages  so  coarse.  Yet  to-day  we  see  thousands 
of  women  go  into  ecstasies  over  the  stories  of  Rudyard  Kipling, 
while  conversely  it  is  not  improbable  that  the  delicate  art  of  Jane 


332  NOTES. 

Austen  finds  more  admirers  among  men  than  among  women. 
Thomas  Hardy  has  many  bitter  enemies  among  his  feminine 
readers  ;  one  of  them  wrote  on  the  margin  of  one  of  his  novels 
that  belonged  to  a  circulating  library,  "Oh,  how  I  hate  Thomas 
Hardy  !  "  One  thing,  at  any  rate,  is  certain.  Women  form  the 
chief  constituency  of  the  modern  successful  novelist.  They  are  as 
necessary  to  the  success  of  the  novel  as  they  are  to  foreign  missions. 

206.  2. — yack  Sheppard.  John  Sheppard,  the  criminal,  was 
born  in  1702.  His  mistress,  who  led  him  astray,  incited  him  to 
most  of  his  crimes.  He  astonished  England  with  his  wonderful 
escapes  from  prison  ;  and  his  final  execution  in  1724  was  wit- 
nessed by  200,000  people.  Defoe's  interesting  novel,  Colonel 
yacqiie,  gives  a  good  account  of  a  career  of  robbery  similar  to 
that  of  Jack  Sheppard. 

206.  3. — Jonathan  JVild.  See  Fielding's  famous  novel  of 
that  name,  which  deals  with  a  historical  personage.  Wild  was  a 
detective,  who  brought  35  highway  robbers,  22  house-breakers, 
and  10  returned  convicts  to  the  gallows.  He  was  born  in  1682, 
and  was  himself  executed  for  house-breaking  in  1725. 

206.  12. — Draco.  Draco,  or  Dracon,  was  an  Athenian  legis- 
lator, who  ruled  as  Archon  in  621  B.C.  He  is  commonly  said  to 
have  made  death  a  penalty  for  every  offense,  no  matter  how  triv- 
ial, but  his  cruelty  is  doubtless  exaggerated  by  tradition. 

206.   29. — Sconces.     Elaborate  fixed  candlesticks. 

206.  31. — Baldaquin.  Usually  spelled  "baldachin."  An 
ornamental  canopy  generally  placed  over  an  altar. 

"  For  see,  for  see,  the  rapturous  moment 
Approaches,  and  earth's  best  endowment 
Blends  with  heaven's;  the  taper-fires 
Pant  up,  the  winding  brazen  spires 
Heave  loftier  yet  the  baldachin." 

—  Browning's  Christmas  Eve. 

The  baldachin  Browning  refers  to  is  the  canopy  over  the  altar 
of  St.  Peter's  in  Rome.  It  is  elevated  on  superb  columns,  and 
stands  95  feet  high. 

207.  26. — Andromeda.  (Classic  mythology.)  Andromeda  is 
chained  to  the  beach,  and  the  horrid  sea-monster  approaches  to 
devour  her,  secure  of  his  prey  ;  but  the  hero  Perseus  slays  him  in 
the  very  nick  of  time,  and  marries  the  lovely  maid  as  his  reward. 


NOTES.  333 

See  Charles  Kingsley's  poem  Andromeda.  For  a  splendid  de- 
scription of  a  painting  of  Andromeda,  see  Browning's  Pauline,  vs. 
656  et  seq.  Though  written  when  Browning  was  only  twenty 
years  old,  it  is  in  his  best  vein. 

207.  27. — jfudith.  For  the  dramatic  story  of  Judith  and 
Holofernes,  see  the  book  Judith  in  the  Apocrypha.  The  igno- 
ranee  of  the  books  in  the  Apocrypha  that  prevails  among  school 
and  college  students  is  even  more  dense  and  profound  than  that 
of  the  Bible  proper. 

208;  24. — Tyburn.  This  was  at  the  northeast  corner  of  Hyde 
Park,  London.  "At  this  corner  of  Hyde  Park,  where  the  angle 
of  Connaught  Place  now  stands,  was  the  famous  'Tyburn  Tree,' 
sometimes  called  the  'Three-Legged  Mare, '  being  a  triangle  on 
three  legs,  where  the  public  executions  took  place  till  they  were 
transferred  to  Newgate  in  1783.  The  manor  of  Tyburn  took  its 
name  from  the  Tye  Bourne  or  brook,  which  rose  under  Primrose 
Hill,  and  the  place  was  originally  chosen  for  executions  because, 
though  on  the  high  road  to  Oxford,  it  was  remote  from  London. 
The  condemned  were  brought  hither  in  a  cart  from  Newgate — 

'  thief  and  parson  in  a  Tyburn  cart,' 
the  prisoner  usually  carrying  the  immense  nosegay  which,  by  old 
custom,  was  presented  to  him  on  the  steps  of  St.  Sepulchre's 
Church,  and  having  been  refreshed  with  a  bowl  of  ale  at  St. 
Giles's.  The  cart  was  driven  underneath  the  gallows,  and,  after 
the  noose  was  adjusted,  was  driven  quickly  away  by  Jack  Ketch 
the  hangman,  so  that  the  prisoner  was  left  suspended.  .  .  . 
Around  the  place  of  execution  were  raised  galleries  which  were 
let  to  spectators  ;  they  were  destroyed  by  the  disappointed  mob 
who  had  engaged  them  when  Dr.  Henesey  was  reprieved  in 
1758.  The  bodies  of  Cromwell,  Ireton,  and  Bradshaw  were 
buried  under  the  Tyburn  tree,  after  hanging  there  for  a  day." — 
Hare,  Walks  in  London,  H,  loi. 

On  October  23,  1668,  Pepys  writes:  "And  so  away  with  Mr. 
Pierce,  the  surgeon,  towards  Tyburne,  to  see  the  people  executed  ; 
but  come  too  late,  it  being  done  ;  two  men  and  a  woman  hanged, 
and  so  back  again  and  to  my  coachmaker's." — Diary,  ed.  Wheat- 
ley,  Vni,  120.  On  April  19,  1662,  he  had  written:  "This 
morning,  before  we  sat,  I  went  to  Aldgate  ;  and   at  the  corner 


334  NO  TES. 

shop,  a  draper's,  I  stood,  and  did  see  Barkestead,  Okey,  and 
Corbet  drawn  towards  the  gallows  at  Tiburne  ;  and  there  they 
were  hanged  and  quartered.  Tney  all  looked  very  cheerful;  but 
I  hear  they  all  die  defending  what  they  did  to  the  King  to  be 
just;  which  is  very  strange."     II,  208. 

209.  3. — Bogey.  This  word,  which  is  spelled  in  a  variety  of 
ways,  is  derived  from  the  Welsh  "  bwg, "  a  hobgoblin.  The  same 
rcfot  is  seen  in  '"bugbear." 

209.  14.  —  '^IVhittmgton."  Sir  Richard  Whittington  was  born 
about  1350,  and  from  a  humble  origin  succeeded  in  becoming 
Lord  Mayor  of  London.  His  typically  edifying  career  made  him 
a  fit  subject  for  didactic  ballads,  such  as  are  mentioned  here. 
There  is  a  broadside  in  the  Roxburghe  Collection,  called  Lon- 
don's Glory  and  Whittington  s  Renown,  beginning 

"  Brave  London  Prentices,  come  listen  to  my  Song." 

— Roxburghe  Ballads^  Ballad  Society^s  ed.,  VII,  582-^. 

See  also  Aft  Old  Ballad  of  Whittington  and  his  Cat  {Roxb.  and 
Douce  Coll.),  Ibid.,  VII,  585-6. 

The  ballad  of  the  "London  'Prentice"  alluded  to  in  the  text 
may  be  the  once  popular  broadside  ballad  called  The  Honour  of 
a  London  Prentice  ;  Being  an  Account  of  his  matchless  Manhood 
and  brave  Adventures  done  in  Turkey,  and  by  what  means  he  mar- 
ried the  King  s  Daughter.  (^Roxb.,  Pepys,  and  other  Colls.)  It  is 
printed  in  Roxb.  Ballads,  as  above,  VII,  589-91. 

209.  16. — Moll  Flanders.  Defoe's  story  with  this  title  is  one 
of  the  first  strictly  realistic  novels  in  English.  It  was  published 
in  1722. 

209.  19. — '■^  Halfpenny-under-the-hat."  This  is  defined  in 
Murray's  New  English  Dictionary  as  "  a  low  game  of  chance," 
without  any  particulars  :  and  the  only  reference  given  is  the  one 
in  our  text. 

210.  4. — Chuck-farthi7ig.  A  game  in  which  a  farthing  is 
pitched  into  a  hole;  played  for  "keeps."  Compare  the  game  of 
"  pitch-penny." 

210.  30. — -Bandolier.  A  broad  leather  belt  worn  by  soldiers. 
It  used  to  be  worn  across  the  breast,  passing  from  the  right 
shoulder  under  the  left  arm.  Nowadays  it  is  simply  the  car- 
tridge-belt. 


NOTES.  335 

211.  4. — A  splendid  marble  arch.  There  are  permissible 
doubts  as  to  the  real  splendour  of  this  arch.  Hare  says  it  is 
"one  of  our  national  follies — a  despicable  caricature  of  the  Arch 
of  Constantine." — Walks  in  London,  II,  100.  It  was,  like  most 
follies,  expensive;  for  its  original  cost  was  75,000  pounds,  and  it 
later  took  a  goodly  sum  to  move  it  to  its  present  position  at  Hyde 
Park.  The  "polite  Tyburnia,"  from  its  situation  in  the  West 
End  of  London,  is  naturally  a  much  more  "respectable  district" 
than  it  was  in  the  good  old  Tyburn  times. 

211.  22. — Dick  Turpin.     See  note  to  page  98,  line  30. 

211.  23. — Squire  Western.     The  famous  squire  in  Tom  Jones. 

212.  23. — Bridewell.  This  was  originally  a  hospital  for  the 
poor  :  later  it  became  a  penitentiary  for  loose  and  disorderly 
characters.  It  often  appears  in  this  connection  in  the  Eliza- 
bethan drama. 

213.  3.  —  Who  ran  away  with  Johnny  Cope.  Sir  John  Cope 
was  commander-in-chief  in  Scotland  in  1745.  At  daybreak  on 
the  morning  of  September  21  Prince  Charles  and  the  Highlanders 
made  a  fierce  attack,  which  took  Cope  completely  by  surprise. 
There  was  only  one  thing  to  do — to  run  away  as  fast  as  possible. 
This  Cope  succeeded  in  doing  ;  and  the  flight  never  ceased  to 
appeal  to  the  Scots'  sense  of  humour.     A  song  became  popular — 

"  Hey,  Johnie  Cope  1  are  ye  waukin  yet  ?  " 

It  is  only  fair  to  add  that  an  official  inquiry  completely  exonerated 
Cope  from  all  censure.  He  died  in  1760.  The  date  of  his  birth 
is  not  known. 

213.  8. — Parson  Adatns.  A  great  character  in  Fielding's 
Joseph  Andrews.  There  has  never  been  any  reason  to  doubt  the 
first  judgment  of  Thomas  Gray  on  this  personage,  who,  shortly 
after  the  appearance  of  the  story,  wrote  in  a  letter,  "Parson 
Adams  is  perfectly  well." — Works,  ed.  Gosse,  II,  107.  The  book 
was  published  in  February,  1742  :  young  Richard  West,  then  in 
his  last  illness,  read  it,  and  was  delighted;  on  his  earnest  recom- 
mendation Gray  took  up  the  novel,  and  in  April  wrote  to  West  the 
letter  from  which  the  above  is  an  extract. 

213.  20. — Jack  Hatchway.  A  character  in  Smollett's  Pere- 
grine Pickle.      Lismahago  appears  in  Humphry  Clinker. 


33^  NOTES. 

214.  7. — Roderick  Random.  The  hero  of  Smollett's  novel  of 
that  name. 

214.  13. — Broughton  the  boxer.  John  Broughton  was  born  in 
1705,  and  lived  until  1789,  a  longer  space  than  is  allotted  to 
most  modern  pugilists.  He  was  the  father  of  British  prize-fight- 
ing. Before  he  appeared  fights  were  not  generally  settled  by  fists. 
Originally  a  waterman,  he  discovered  a  lucrative  career  in  fight- 
ing, and  amassed  7,000  pounds.  He  was  patronised  by  aristo- 
cratic society,  and  on  the  whole  was  an  excellent  specimen  of  his 
profession. 

214.  13.  —  Sarah  Malcolm.  She  was  executed  in  1733,  when 
she  was  about  twenty-three  years  old.  Hogarth  painted  a  strik- 
ing likeness  of  her.  while  she  was  in  prison  during  her  trial  for 
murder. 

214.  14. — Simon  Lovat.  Simon  Fraser,  sometime  Master  of 
Lovat  (1 726-1 782).  He  headed  his  Highland  clan  against  the 
English  forces;  but  he  was  afterwards  pardoned,  and  served  bril- 
liantly in  the  British  army  in  America  and  elsewhere. 

214.  14. — John  Wilkes.  The  famous  agitator,  bom  in  1727. 
He  figured  in  many  libel  suits,  and  was  a  great  mob  leader.  A 
clever  and  unscrupulous  demagogue,  he  was  the  idol  of  his  numer- 
ous followers.  He  was  Lord  Mayor  of  London  and  a  member  of 
Parliament.  His  meeting  Dr.  Johnson  at  dinner  is  most  humour- 
ously described  by  Boswell.  (See  Boswell's  Johnsoti,  ed.  Hill, 
in,  74.)  The  references  to  Wilkes  in  Boswell's  Johnson  take  up 
two  columns  of  Hill's  admirable  index.     Wilkes  died  in  1797. 

219.  6.  —  Correggio.  Antonio  Allegri  Correggio  (1494-1534),  a 
great  Italian  painter. 

219.  6.  —  The  Caracci.  Agostino  Caracci  (1558-1602)  and 
Annibal  Caracci  (1560-1609)  were  brothers.  The  latter  was  a 
pupil  of  his  cousin,  Ludovico  Caracci  (1555-1619).  All  three 
were  famous  Italian  artists. 

220.  16. — Listen  s  firm  belief.  John  Listen  (1776  ?-i846)  was 
an  exceedingly  successful  comic  actor,  but  subject  to  fits  of  de- 
pression. The  gravity  of  his  countenance  had  not  a  little  to  do 
with  his  great  success  in  comedy. 

220.  2-i.  — Churchill.  Charles  Cliurchill  (1731-1764).  His 
Epistle  to  Hogarth  appeared  in   1763,  and  Churchill,  Wilkes,  and 


NOTES.  337 

Hogarth  mingled  in  various  literary  and  political  controversies. 
The  Epistle  is  said  to  have  shortened  Hogarth's  days;  but  it  seems 
more  apparent  that  it  shortened  those  of  Churchill,  as  he  died  the 
next  year. 

222.  25. — Hopscotch.  This  game  does  not  seem  to  be  now  so 
popular  (in  New  England  at  any  rate)  as  it  was  some  fifteen  or 
twenty  years  ago,  and  it  may  before  long  join  the  ranks  of  the 
extinct  games.  A  chalk  figure  is  marked  out  on  the  pavement, 
and  a  child,  hopping  on  one  foot,  kicks  a  stone  into  the  various 
compartments  of  the  figure. 

231.  12. — Doctor  Caius.  A  French  physician  in  Shakspere's 
Merry  Wives  of  Windsor. 

231.  14. — Dalgetty .  A  character  in  Sir  Walter  Scott's  novel, 
A  Legend  of  Montrose. 

231.  24. — Bladua's  well.  Bladud  was  a  mythical  king  of 
England,  supposed  to  be  the  father  of  King  Lear.  He  built  the 
city  of  Bath,  and  dedicated  the  medicinal  springs  to  Minerva. 

234.  18.  —  The  Oldfields  mid  Bracegirdles.  For  Mrs.  Brace- 
girdle  see  note  to  page  58,  line  5.  Anne  Oldfield  (1683-1730) 
was  a  favourite  actress  of  her  day.  When  very  young  she  lived 
with  her  mother  at  the  Mitre  Tavern.  Farquhar  overheard  her 
reciting  passages  from  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  and  was  immedi- 
ately impressed.  Her  mother  told  the  dramatist  Vanbrugh  about 
it,  the  result  being  that  Anne  went  on  the  stage.  Her  progress 
was  slow,  but  eventually  she  became  one  of  England's  greatest 
actresses  in  both  tragedy  and  comedy.  She  was  the  original 
Biddy  Tipkin  in  Steele's  Tender  Husband {110$).  Personally  she 
was  sensible,  agreeable,  and  an  exceedingly  attractive  woman. 
Her  body  lies  buried  beneath  the  monument  of  Congreve  in  West- 
minster Abbey.  She  lives  again  on  the  stage  to-day  in  Miss  Ellen 
Terry's  admirable  impersonation,  in  Charles  Reade's  comedy, 
Nance  Oldfield. 

It  was  Oldfield  who  practically  drove  Bracegirdle  off  the  stage; 
they  came  into  competition  in  1706-7,  with  the  result  that  the 
former  was  so  successful  that  the  latter  retired. 

237.  4. — In  ridicule  of  '■'■Pamela."  This  novel,  the  first  of  the 
three  great  works  of  Richardson,  was  published  in  1740.  Its 
didacticism  and  sentimentality  made  it  a  natural  target  for  the 


33^  NOTES. 

powerful  satirical  wit  of  Fielding;  but  it  is  easy,  especially  if  one 
has  never  read  him,  to  ridicule  Richardson,  and  meanwhile  to  for- 
get his  great  genius  and  extraordinary  power  of  analysis.  Pamela, 
with  all  its  obvious  faults,  is  a  great  book,  and  Clarissa  Harlowe 
is  greater.  And  though  Joseph  Andre^vs  made  everybody  laugh 
at  the  weak  spots  in  Pamela,  there  has  seldom  been  a  more  clever 
criticism  passed  on  a  great  novel  than  when  Richardson  said  that 
the  virtues  of  Tom  Jones  were  good  men's  vices. 

Richardson  never  could  endure  Fielding.  In  a  letter  that  he 
wrote  to  Mrs.  Donnellan  on  February  22,  1752,  he  says  :  "You 
guess  that  I  have  not  read  Amelia.  Indeed  I  have  read  but  the 
first  volume.  I  had  intended  to  go  through  with  it;  but  I  found 
the  characters  and  situations  so  wretchedly  low  and  dirty,  that  I 
imagined  I  could  not  be  interested  for  any  one  of  them ;  and  to 
read  and  not  to  care  what  became  of  the  hero  and  heroine,  is  a 
task  that  I  thought  I  would  leave  to  those  who  had  more  leisure 
than  I  am  blessed  with. 

"Parson  Young  sat  for  Fielding's  parson  Adams,  a  man  he 
knew,  and  only  made  a  little  more  absurd  than  he  is  known  to  be. 
The  best  story  in  the  piece,  is  of  himself  and  his  first  wife.  In  his 
Tom  Jones,  his  hero  is  made  a  natural  child,  because  his  own  first 
wife  was  such.  Tom  Jones  is  Fielding  himself,  hardened  in  some 
places,  softened  in  others.  His  Lady  Bellaston  is  an  infamous 
woman  of  his  former  acquaintance.  His  Sophia  is  again  his  first 
wife.  Booth,  in  his  last  piece,  again  himself;  Amelia,  even  to  her 
noselessness,  is  again  his  first  wife.  His  brawls,  his  jarrs,  his 
gaols,  his  spunging-houses,  are  all  drawn  from  what  he  has  seen 
and  known.  As  I  said  (witness  also  his  hamper  plot)  he  has  lit- 
tle or  no  invention  :  and  admirably  do  you  observe,  that  by  seve- 
ral strokes  in  his  Amelia  he  designed  to  be  good,  but  knew  not 
how,  and  lost  his  genius,  low  humour,  in  the  attempt." — Richard- 
son's Correspondence,  ed.  Barbauld,  IV,  60. 

Richardson's  criticising  Fielding  for  having  little  or  no  inven- 
tion, and  attempting  to  prove  the  charge  by  showing  that  Fielding 
drew  his  characters  from  the  life,  is  rather  interesting.  Richard- 
son's friend  and  correspondent,  the  worthy  sonnetteer  Thomas 
Edwards,  had  as  low  an  opinion  of  Fielding  as  Richardson  ex- 
pressed.    In  a  letter  to  Richardson  on  May  28,  1755,  1'*^  ^^ys  : 


NOTES.  339 

"I  have  lately  read  over  with  much  indignation  Fielding's  last 
piece,  called  his  Voyage  to  Lisbon.  That  a  man,  who  had  led 
such  a  life  as  he  had,  should  trifle  in  that  manner  when  immediate 
death  was  before  his  eyes,  is  amazing.  From  this  book  I  am  con- 
firmed in  what  his  other  works  had  fully  persuaded  me  of,  that 
with  all  his  parade  of  pretences  to  virtuous  and  humane  affections, 
the  fellow  had  no  heart.  And  so — his  knell  is  knoUed." — Rich- 
ardson's Correspondence,  III,  125. 

238.  15. —  Walpole  quite  honestly  spoke  of  thevt.  This  was 
practically  the  language  that  Walpole  used  in  speaking  of  the 
novels  of  Richardson.  He  said,  Richardson  "wrote  those  de- 
plorably tedious  lamentations,  '  Clarissa '  and  '  Sir  Charles 
Grandison, '  which  are  pictures  of  high  life  as  conceived  by  a 
bookseller,  and  romances  as  they  would  be  spiritualised  by  a 
Methodist  teacher." — Letters,  IV,  305. 

238.  21.  —  The  kind  and  wise  old  Johnson.  "Fielding  being 
mentioned,  Johnson  exclaimed,  '  he  was  a  blockhead  ; '  and 
upon  my  expressing  my  astonishment  at  so  strange  an  assertion, 
he  said,  '  What  I  mean  by  his  being  a  blockhead  is  that  he  was 
a  barren  rascal.'  BoswELL.  'Will  you  not  allow,  Sir,  that  he 
draws  very  natural  pictures  of  human  life?  '  Johnson.  'Why,  Sir, 
it  is  of  very  low  life.  .  .  .  Sir,  there  is  more  knowledge  of  the 
heart  in  one  letter  of  Richardson's,  than  in  all  Tom  Jones.'" — 
Boswell's  Johnson,  ed.  Hill,  II,  199. 

238.  25.  —  Gibbon  wrote  of  him.  This  passage  appears  in  Gib- 
bon's Miscellaneous  Works,  I,  4.  Thackeray's  quotation  is  not 
strictly  accurate.  "Humour  and  manners  "  should  read  "Human 
manners,"  and  there  are  other  minor  mistakes  which  do  not,  how- 
ever, change  the  import  of  the  passage, 

In  view  of  Gibbon's  correct  estimate  of  the  immortality  of  Tom 
Jones,  it  is  amusing  to  read  in  Richardson's  Correspondence,  five 
years  after  the  publication  of  the  novel,  "Its  run  is  over,  even 
with  us." — Correspondence,  V,  275. 

240.  5. — Blifl.  Blifil,  Lady  Bellaston,  Parson  Thwackum, 
and  "Miss  Seagrim"  are  all  characters  in  Tom  Jones. 

241.  t^.— Charles  and  Joseph  Surface.  These  are  famous  char- 
acters in  Sheridan's  comedy,  The  School  for  Scandal.  The  latter 
has  become  a  synonym  for  a  hypocrite. 


340  A'C  TES. 

2\X.  8. — Fiction!  luhy  fiction?  This  is  just  what  Richardson 
objected  to,  as  showing  that  Fielding  had  no  invention.  See  note 
to  page  237,  line  4. 

243.  9. — Lady  Mary  Wort  ley  Montagu.  This  distinguished 
personage,  mentioned  so  often  in  books  dealing  with  life  and  lit- 
erature in  the  eighteenth  century,  was  one  of  the  most  brilliant, 
attractive,  accomplished,  and  worldly-minded  women  of  her  age. 
Pope  had  a  sickening  sentimental  feeling  toward  her,  as  his  let- 
ters show.  His  Eloisa  was  written  under  her  inspiration.  She 
was  born  in  1689,  and  died  in  1762. 

243.    10. — Colonel  Bath.     A  character  in  Afnelia. 

243.  II. — Colonel  Gardi7ier.  James  Gardiner,  colonel  of  dra- 
goons, was  born  in  1688,  and  died  in  1745.  He  became  an  en- 
sign at  the  age  of  fourteen,  and  in  1702  entered  the  service  of 
Anne.  He  exhibited  the  greatest  gallantry  at  the  battle  of  Ra- 
millies  in  1706,  where  he  was  wounded  in  the  face.  Although  as 
a  youth  he  indulged  in  dissipation,  he  happened  to  pick  up  a 
religious  book  one  day  while  waiting  for  an  assignation,  and  was 
instantly  converted.  He  declared  and  always  stoutly  maintained 
that  at  that  time  he  saw  a  vision  of  Jesus  Christ.  In  battle  after 
battle  he  showed  astonishing  personal  courage,  performing  with 
delight  the  most  dare-devil  deeds.  At  last,  in  the  rebellion  of 
1745,  while  fighting  the  Pretender's  forces  in  a  battle  that  was 
from  the  start  hopelessly  against  him,  he  refused  to  quit  the  field, 
although  literally  covered  with  dangerous  and  painful  wounds. 
Finally  a  Highlander  came  behind  him  while  he  was  engaged  in 
a  personal  struggle  with  an  opposing  officer,  and  gave  him  a 
mortal  blow  in  the  back  of  the  head  with  an  axe.  He  died  on 
the  next  day. 

243.  12. — Duke  of  Cumberland.     See  note  to  page  163. 

244.  I. — Coup  de  main.     A  deft  stroke. 

Thackeray's  treatment  of  Fielding  is  particularly  sympathetic, 
but  at  the  same  time  discriminating.  His  praise  of  the  more  manly 
elements  in  Fielding's  character  is  thoroughly  merited,  and  he 
does  not  go  any  further  than  hundreds  and  thousands  of  readers 
and  admirers  of  Fielding  would  go  to-day.  The  difference  be- 
tween Thackeray's  estimate  of  Fielding  and  his  estimate  of  Pope 


NOTES.  341 

is  simply  this  :  he  praises  the  former  for  qualities  he  actually  pos- 
sessed; while  Pope  he  lauds  highly  for  virtues  conspicuous  by 
their  absence.  Furthermore,  apart  from  the  manliness  and  open- 
hearted  generosity  of  Fielding's  character,  which  would  especially 
appeal  to  a  man  of  Thackeray's  temperament,  the  great  novelist 
of  the  nineteenth  century  recognised  the  great  novelist  of  the 
eighteenth  century  as  his  master,  from  whom  he  chiefly  learned 
the  art  of  fiction;  as  indeed  is  evident  to  any  intelligent  reader 
of  Thackeray's  books.  Perhaps  the  highest  compliment  we  can 
pay  Fielding,  is  to  say,  as  many  of  us  do,  after  reading  and  re- 
reading Tom  yones,  ' '  This  man  was  worthy  to  be  the  master  of 
Thackeray." 

STERNE  AND   GOLDSMITH. 

248.  4. — Reign  of  Charles  II.  The  note  at  the  bottom  of  the 
page  refers  to  the  years  in  which  he  held  the  Archbishopric,  not 
to  the  length  of  the  king's  reign,  which  extended  from  1660  to 
1685. 

248.  14. — Poor  Roger  Sterne.  "His  son  described  him  in  an 
autobiographic  fragment  as  '  a  little  smart  man,  active  to  the  last 
degree  in  all  exercises — most  patient  of  fatigue  and  disappoint- 
ments, of  which  it  pleased  God  to  give  him  full  measure ;  he  was 
in  his  temper  somewhat  rapid  and  hasty,  but  of  kindly  disposition, 
void  of  all  design,  and  so  innocent  in  his  own  intentions  that  he 
suspected  no  one.' "  {Diet.  Nat.  Biog.,  art.  Sterne,  Laurence.') 
This  description  would  hardly  apply  to  the  more  famous  and  yet 
despicable  son. 

249.  4. — Ireland.  Note  that  Sterne,  like  Swift,  was  born  in 
Ireland,  though  their  fathers  were  English;  while  Goldsmith  was 
Irish  through  and  through.  Clonmel  is  near  the  extreme  southern 
boundary  of  the  county  of  Tipperary. 

249.  8. — Alullingar.  This  town  is  in  the  county  of  West  Meath, 
and  is  about  fifty  miles  northwest  of  Dublin. 

249.  10. — Carrickfergus.  This  is  a  seaport-town  on  the  north- 
east coast  of  Ireland,  about  ten  miles  from  Belfast.  It  is  in  the 
county  of  Antrim,  but  is  also  a  separate  county  all  by  itself. 
King  William  III  landed  there  in  June,  1690,  just  before  the  great 
battle  of  the  Boyne.     The  town  is  famoiis  for  its  beautiful  old 


342 


NO  TES. 


castle,  which  stands  on  a  lofty  cliff  by  the  sea,  and  is  thought  to 
be  about  seven  hundred  years  old. 

249.  \\.— Halifax.  This  is  in  the  county  of  York,  England, 
situated  about  194  miles  northwest  of  London.  It  is  now  a  great 
manufacturing  center. 

240.    13. Elvington.      This  village  is  about  six  miles  southeast 

of  the  city  of  York. 

In  any  study  of  literature,  the  student  should  always  have  at 
hand  good  maps,  and  should  look  up  the  location  of  all  places  that 
are  mentioned,  in  order  to  familarise  himself  particularly  with  the 
literary  geography  of  Great  Britain,  a  subject  on  which  most 
American  school  and  college  students  are  densely  ignorant— an 
ignorance  which  they  share  in  common  with  many  persons  who 
have  had  no  education  at  all. 

249.  18. —  Trim  s  vwntero  cap,  and  Le  Fevre's  sword,  and  dear 
Uncle  Tobys  roquelaure.  These  men  are  all  characters  in  Tris- 
tram Shandy.  "Montero  cap"  is  really  tautological:  the  word 
"montero"  means  a  hunting  cap.  "Roquelaure"  is  a  cloak 
that  reaches  about  to  the  knees:  it  was  commonly  worn  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  and  took  its  name  from  the  Due  de  Roque- 
laure, in  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV. 

2AQ.  2T,.—Ramillies.  .  .  Malplaquet.  For  these,  see  notes  to 
page  100,  line  21. 

250.  10.  — Sutton.  This  was  a  village,  seven  or  eight  miles 
north  of  York. 

2C0.  12. — Stillingtoii.  This  parish  was  situated  next  to  Sut- 
ton. Sterne  never  lived  in  this  parsonage:  he  doubtless  regarded 
it  merely  as  an  additional  source  of  revenue,  which  indeed  it  was. 

250.  32.  —  Cox:iiold.  This  village  was  pleasantly  situated  on 
high  ground,  about  twenty-two  miles  north  of  York.  Sterne  had 
never  liked  the  climate  of  Sutton,  and  moved  to  Coxwold  with  the 
greatest  pleasure.  Here  he  lived  in  a  large  cottage,  which  he 
called  "Shandy  Hall."  The  house  now  has  a  tablet  in  memory 
of  its  distinguished  occupant,  who  continued  the  composition  of 
Tristram  while  living  there. 

251.  16. — Polyanthus.      The  oxlip. 

252.  6. — Slim   mcTtaliter    in   amorc.       "  I    am    hopelessly    in 

love." 


NO  TES.  343 

252.    13. — Arroser.     To  water. 

252.  20. — The  French  of  this  letter  may  be  thus  translated: 
"We  arrived  on  the  morrow  at  Montpellier,  where  we  found  our 
friend  Mr.  Sterne,  his  wife,  his  daughter,  Mr.  Huet,  and  some 
other  English  ladies.  I  got,  I  own,  much  pleasure,  in  seeing  again 
the  good  and  charming  Tristram.  .  .  .  He  had  been  long  enough 
at  Toulouse,  where  he  would  have  amused  himself  save  for  his 
wife,  who  followed  him  up  everywhere,  and  who  wished  to  have 
a  hand  in  everything.  This  lady's  little  ways  made  him  undergo 
some  decidedly  unpleasant  moments;  but  he  bears  up  under  all 
these  trials  with  the  patience  of  an  angel." 

2^3.  2.  —  The  charming  Yorick.  The  easy-going  parson  in 
Tristram  Shandy.  See  note  at  bottom  of  page  254.  The  Senti- 
mental Journey  also  purported  to  come  from  the  pen  of  "Mr. 
Yorick." 

253.  5. — Rabelais.  Fran5ois  Rabelais,  one  of  the  first  great 
names  in  French  literature,  was  born  toward  the  end  of  the 
fifteenth  century,  and  died  about  the  year  1553.  Although  a 
churchman,  the  tone  of  his  writings  is  not  too  ecclesiastic.  Swift 
is  sometimes  called  the  English  Rabelais. 

253.  7. — Meiidon.  A  small  town  in  the  immediate  neighborhood 
of  Paris,  about  five  miles  to  the  southwest.  It  stands  on  rising 
ground,  and  commands  a  particularly  good  view  of  the  city  and 
of  the  course  of  the  Seine.  The  church  was  built  in  the  sixteenth 
century,  and  is  interesting  only  for  the  association  with  the  name 
of  Rabelais,  who  was  made  cure  of  Meudon  in  1550.  Many 
French  poets  and  writers  have  frequented  this  beautiful  retreat: 
Victor  Hugo  has  spoken  of  it  affectionately,  and  Daudet,  Flaubert, 
and  others  used  to  meet  there. 

253,  25. — Gray's  Letters.  The  quotation  given  in  this  foot- 
note is  really  from  two  letters  of  Gray.  The  first  part  up  to  the 
words  "As  to  the  volumes,"  is  from  a  letter  to  Thomas  Wharton, 
April  22,  1 760;  the  second  is  garbled,  and  may  be  found  in 
Gray's  letter  to  Wharton,  July,  1760.  See  Gray's  Works,  ed. 
Gosse,  II,  36,  53.  The  quotation,  however,  was  probably  taken 
directly  from  Mason's  Life  of  Gray,  where  it  stands  as  in  the  note 
to  our  text.  Mason  was  the  literary  executor  of  Gray,  and  in 
1775  published  the  Life,  containing  the  correspondence,  and  other 


344  NOTES. 

documents.  His  honesty  and  editorial  accuracy  may  be  justly 
estimated  by  the  footnote  to  our  text,  which  gives  under  the  wrong 
date  an  extract  from  a  letter,  which  is  really  hashed  up  and 
garbled  from  two  letters,  and  contains  some  words  not  to  be 
found  in  Gray's  correspondence  at  all. 

253.  26. — "//  having  been  observed"  etc.  This  quotation 
may  be  found  in  Boswell's  yo/utson,  ed.  Hill,  H,  254.  Dr.  Hill 
adds  a  footnote,  by  which  Johnson  would  not  appear  after  all  to 
have  differed  so  much  from  the  drastic  opinion  expressed  by 
Goldsmith.  "I  was  but  once, "  said  Johnson,  "  in  Sterne's  com- 
pany, and  then  his  only  attempt  at  merriment  consisted  in  his 
display  of  a  drawing  too  indecently  gross  to  have  delighted  even 
in  a  brothel." 

253,  32.  —  '^  I/er,"  etc.  Boswell's  yt^/^wj^w,  IV,  126.  See  also 
the  footnote  on  the  same  page  of  Boswell,  where  Johnson  con- 
demned the  sermons  of  Sterne,  saying  that  he  once  read  them  in 
a  stage-coach,  but  that  he  should  not  have  deigned  to  have  looked 
at  them  had  he  been  "at  large." 

254.  I. —  The  more  than  rival.  It  is  rather  singular  that  the 
writings  of  Sterne,  Rabelais,  and  Swift,  when  all  three  were 
churchmen,  should  have  a  reputation  and  a  circulation  on  account 
of  their  coarseness  wholly  distinct  from  their  literary  importance. 

256.  28. — L amour.      " Love  is  nothing  without  sentiment." 

257.  13. — Deal.  Deal  is  on  the  coast  of  the  English  Channel, 
nine  miles  north  of  Dover. 

257.  23.  —  ^^ And  so  I  should  ez'er  love  thee."  This  passage 
really  reads,  "  And  so  I  should  ever  live  with  thee."  Thackeray 
also  garbles  this  letter,  but  not  in  a  way  to  alter  its  significance 
at  all.     See  Letters,  etc.,  of  Sterne,  ed.  Saintsbury,  I,  140. 

258.  3. — '■^Ifear"  etc.  Saintsbury's  edition,  II,  5.  There 
are  several  minor  changes  in  Thackeray's  version,  as  "your 
judgment"  for  "the  judgment,"  and  others. 

258.  13.  —  '■^  I  honour  you,  Eliza.^^  See  Saintsbury's  edition, 
II,  9.  After  the  words  "Waller  his  Saccharissa,"  Sterne  wrote 
the  still  more  significant  phrase,  "  as  I  will  love  and  sing  thee, 
my  wife  elect !  " 

258.  29. — Scarron  his  Maintenon.  Paul  Scarron  (1610-1660), 
a  burlesque  writer.     As  a  youth  he  was  extremely  dissipated  ;  in 


NOTES.  ■  345 

1637  paralysis  seized  him,  and  he  became  unable  to  walk.  Then 
he  took  to  literature ;  and  by  his  writings  of  burlesques  and  simi- 
lar compositions  he  obtained  a  wide  reputation.  In  1652  he  was 
married  to  Fran^oise  D'Aubigne,  afterward  Madame  de  Mainte- 
non.  Their  house  was  a  great  rendezvous  for  the  wits  of  the 
day.  The  famous  Madame  de  Maintenon  was  born  in  prison  in 
1635,  being  of  Protestant  parents.  Later  she  went  to  a  convent, 
and  after  a  long  struggle  became  a  Roman  Catholic.  'In  1669 
she  became  governess  to  some  of  the  children  of  Louis  XIV,  and 
soon  obtained  almost  a  complete  ascendancy  over  him.  It  was, 
of  course,  generally  believed  that  she  was  his  mistress;  but  there 
is  really  good  ground  for  believing  not  only  that  she  refused  to 
yield  to  him,  but  that  she  endeavoured  to  exercise  a  moral  influ- 
ence upon  his  conduct.  In  1683  Louis  privately  married  her, 
though  the  marriage  was  never  publicly  recognised.  He  never 
ceased  to  love  her;  but  she  left  him  on  his  deathbed.  She  insti- 
gated his  persecutions  of  the  Protestants,  and  caused  him  to  issue 
the  famous  revocation  of  the  edict  of  Nantes  (1685).  She  sur- 
vived the  king  four  years,  dying  April  15,  1719. 

G.  W.  Cooke,  in  his  Browning  Guide-Book,  intimates  that  the 
poet  alludes  to  the  marriage  of  Paul  Scarron  with  Fran^oise 
D'Aubigne  in  the  poem  In  a  Balcony,  vs.  521,  522  : 

"  Who  was  a  queen  and  loved  a  poet  once 
Humpbacked,  a  dwarf  ?  ah,  women  can  do  that !  " 

But  she  was  not  a  queen  either  before  or  after  her  marriage  with 
Scarron. 

258.  29. —  Waller  his  Saccharissa.  Edmund  Waller  (1605- 
1687)  had  an  enormous  reputation  as  an  English  poet  in  his  time, 
but  is  very  little  read  to-day  except  by  students  of  the  develop- 
ment of  English  literature,  where  he  holds  a  place  out  of  all  pro- 
portion to  his  intrinsic  merit  as  a  poet.  He  marks  the  transition 
from  the  powerful  but  rugged  verse  of  the  early  part  of  the  sev- 
enteenth century  to  the  smooth  rimed  couplets  which  were  the 
universal  style  at  its  close.  Dryden  regarded  his  genius  with 
reverence,  and  the  prefaces  to  his  plays  contain  many  allusions 
to  Waller's  skill  in  versification,  and  the  resulting  good  effect  on 
English  letters.     Pope  said,  "Waller  was  smooth"  {First  Epistle 


346  NOTES. 

of  the  Second  Book  of  Horace,  vs.  267),  to  wliich  Lowell  assents, 
but  adds:  "Unhappily  he  was  also  flat."  {Essay  on  Dryden.) 
For  a  good  though  somewhat  overdrawn  account  of  Waller's  in- 
fluence on  literary  style,  see  Mr.  Gosse's  book.  From  Shakespeare 
to  Pope,  of  which  Waller  is  the  hero.  Saccharissa  was  Lady 
Dorothy  Sidney,  the  eldest  daughter  of  the  Earl  of  Leicester,  and 
descended  from  Sir  Philip  Sidney.  Waller  loved,  or  thought  he 
loved,  this  lady  ;  he  wrote  a  number  of  poems  addressed  to  her, 
and  gave  her  the  sugary  appellation  by  which  she  is  now  chiefly 
known.  But  she  was  obdurate,  and  cared  not  at  all  for  the  poet. 
259.   6. — Offering  that  precious    treasure   his    heart   to   Lady 

P .     The  portion  of  this  letter  to  which  Thackeray  alludes 

is  worth  printing,  as  it  proves  Sterne's  utter  baseness  of  soul  in  a 
way  that  would  be  thought  incredible,  did  we  not  have  the  neces- 
sary documentary  evidence.  The  only  truth  in  the  letter  is 
the  remark,  '-I  am  a  fool,"  and  his  description  of  his  soul  as  a 
"dishclout."  It  makes  one  almost  blush  for  human  nature  when 
one  reads  the  following  words:  "It  is  but  an  hour  ago  that  I 
kneeled  down  and  swore  I  never  would  come  near  you — an'  after 
saying  my  Lord's  Prayer  for  the  sake  of  the  close,  of  not  being  led 
into  temptation — out  I  sallied  like  any  Christian  hero,  ready  to 
take  the  field  against  the  world,  the  flesh,  and  the  devil;  not  doubt- 
ing but  I  should  finally  trample  them  all  down  under  my  feet — 
and  now  am  I  got  so  near  you — within  this  vile  stone's  cast  of  your 
house — I  feel  myself  drawn  into  a  vortex,  that  has  turned  my 
brain  upside  downwsM-ds,  and  though  I  had  purchased  a  box 
ticket  to  carry  me  to  Miss  *****  'g  benefit,  yet  I  know  very  well, 

tiiat  was  a  single  line  directed  to  me  to  let  me  know  Lady 

would  be  alone  at  seven,  and  suffer  me  to  spend  the  evening  with 
her,  she  would  infallibly  see  every  thing  verified  I  have  told  her. 

— I   dine    at   Mr.    C r's    in   Wigmore-street,   in   this    neigh- 

l)ourh(x>d,  where  I  shall  stay  till  seven,  in  hopes  you  purpose  to 
put  me  to  this  proof.  If  I  hear  nothing  by  that  time,  I  shall  con- 
clude you  are  better  disposed  of — and  shall  take  a  sorry  hack,  and 
SDrrily  jog  on  to  the  play — Curse  on  the  word.  I  know  nothing 
but  sorrow — except  this  one  thing,  that  I  love  you  (perhaps  fool- 
ishly, but)  most  sincerely.  L.  Sterne." 
[Letters,  etc.,  ed.  Saintsbury,  II,  16.) 


NOTES.  347 

260.   8. —  To  the  Earl  of .      The  letter  here  printed  may 

be  found  in  Saintsbury's  edition,  II,  44.     It  differs  slightly  from 
the  one  in  our  text. 

260.  32.  —  The  manner  of  his  death.  See  King  Henry  V^  Act 
II,  Scene  3.  It  is  curious  that  Sterne's  monument  gives  the  date 
of  his  death  erroneously  as  September  13.  See  Saintsbury's 
edition  of  the  Letters,  etc.,  I,  9. 

261.  27. — Dr.  Ferriar.  John  Ferriar  (1761-1815),  a  well- 
known  physician.  He  was  born  in  Scotland,  but  his  whole  career 
was  associated  with  Manchester.  He  wrote  papers  for  the  literary 
and  philosophical  society  of  that  town,  and  was  an  influential  and 
valuable  reformer  of  the  sanitary  conditions  there.  He  made  a 
large  number  of  miscellaneous  literary  efforts,  his  best-known  work 
being  Illustrations  of  Sterne,  which  appearecf  at  Manchester  in 
1798.  Ferriar  showed  up  Sterne's  wholesale  borrowings  from 
French  novelists,  and  especially  from  Burton's  immortal  work, 
The  Anatomy  of  ATelancholy,  though  his  attitude  was  not  un- 
friendly. 

261.  32. — fames  Macdonald.  An  error  for  John  Macdonald. 
The  dates  of  his  birth  and  death  are  not  known.  He  was  the  son 
of  a  Scotch  cattle-dealer,  who  was  killed  at  CuUoden.  After 
wandering  for  years  as  a  vagabond,  Macdonald  became  a  gentle- 
man's servant,  and  from  his  cleverness  and  variety  of  attractions, 
was  known  as  Beau  Macdonald.  He  traveled  extensively,  and  in 
1790  his  book,  Travels  in  Various  Parts,  was  published.  "Ac- 
cording to  this  racy  narrative,  Macdonald,  while  in  London  with 
his  master,  Mr.  Crawford  of  Errol,  was  sent  to  inquire  after  the 
health  of  Laurence  Sterne,  and  found  the  novelist  on  his  death- 
bed. He  claims  to  have  been  among  the  first  to  walk  in  London 
with  an  umbrella." — Did.  Nat.  Biog.,  art.  Macdonald.  The  tes- 
timony of  Macdonald  should  probably  be  taken  with  a  grain  of 
salt. 

262.  II. — Des  chansons  grivoises.  Songs  that  are  off  colour. 
An  exceedingly  good  illustration  of  Sterne's  attitude  toward  life. 

263.  7.  —  Who  can  make  you  cry.  His  ability  to  make  us  cry  is 
not  particularly  remarkable.  We  are  not  more  callous  than  were 
the  readers  of  Sterne  in  the  eighteenth  century;  but  what  drew 
tears  from  them  often  makes  us  smile  or  yawn. 


348  NOTES. 

263.  22. — (the  de'sobligeante).  Sterne  spelled  the  word  without 
the  final  '*e,"  and  it  so  appears  in  the  first  edition  of  the  Hiiviour. 
ists.     Nor  does  the  word  end  the  paragraph  in  the  first  edition. 

The  carriage  was  so  called  because  it  held  only  one  person. 
The  quoted  passage  that  follows  is  from  the  chapter  headed 
"Calais."  It  may  be  found  in  Saintsbury's  edition  of  the  Smti- 
niental  yourney,  page  15. 

264.  3. — Le  tour  est  fait.      The  trick  is  done. 

264.  3. — Paillasse.  The  word  means  literally,  "straw  mat- 
tress."    Hence  a  clown  with  stuffed  or  padded  clothesi 

264.  24. — Monsieur  de  Soubise's  cook.  Charles  de  Rohan, 
Prince  de  Soubise  (1715-1787).  peer  and  marshal  of  Franco,  was 
a  grandson  of  one  of  the  mistresses  of  Louis  XIV.  He  was  a 
clever  courtier,  and  favourite  of  Louis  XV,  and  for  that  reason, 
although  utterly  deficient  in  military  genius,  was  created  a  mar- 
shal of  France.  In  the  Seven  Years  War,  through  the  influence 
of  Madame  de  Pompadour,  he  was  placed  at  the  head  of  an  army, 
and  on  November  4,  1757,  he  was  completely  defeated  at  Ross- 
bach.  This  battle,  according  to  the  Encyclopedia  Britannica, 
was  one  of  the  decisive  battles  of  the  world,  though  no  one 
thought  so  at  the  time.  Everyone  laughed  at  the  luxuries  in  the 
camp  of  Soubise,  who  regarded  a  good  cook  as  more  essential  to  a 
general  than  any  other  official.  After  1763  Soubise  lived  merely 
the  ordinary  frivolous,  time-serving,  and  dissipated  life  of  a 
f>ench  courtier. 

268.  21. —  Viva  lajoia,  Jidon  la  tristessa.  Long  live  mirth  : 
do  away  with  sadness. 

269.  9. — Double  entendre.  A  double  meaning,  immorally  sug- 
gestive. Not  even  the  French  show  more  skill  than  Sterne  does 
in  this  kind  of  thing. 

270.  8. — David  Copperfield.  This  great  novel  had  appeared 
only  a  year  before  Thackeray  delivered  his  lectures.  He  was  thus 
alluding  to  a  contemporary  book,  very  much  as  a  lecturer  to-day 
would  refer  to  Richard  Carvel  or  to  David  Harum.  Nothing 
could  better  illustrate  the  difference  in  greatness  between  the 
novels  of  to-day  and  those  of  fifty  years  ago  than  a  comparison  of 
the  big  "sellers"  of  1900  with  the  popular  novels  of  1850.  In 
his  lecture  on  Charity  and  Humour^  which  appeared  in  the  first 


KOTES.  349 

American,  though  not  in  the  first  English  edition  of  the  Hiwiour- 
ists,  Thackeray  alludes  to  the  books  of  his  great  rival  in  the  most 
affectionate  and  enthusiastic  manner.  Wholly  apart  from  his 
utter  baseness,  Sterne  as  a  humourist  sinks  into  insignificance 
when  compared  with  Dickens  and  Thackeray. 

270.  10. — yete  sti?-  cette  bonle.  This  may  be  roughly  trans- 
lated as  follows  : 

Thrown  upon  this  world, 
Ugly,  puny,  and  miserable  : 
Smothered  in  the  crowd 
For  lack  of  size, 

A  touching  complaint 
Came  from  my  mouth. 
The  good  God  says  :    Sing, 
Sing,  poor  child  ! 

To  sing,  unless  I  mistake. 
Is  my  task  here  below  : 
Won't  all  those  I  amuse 
Love  me  dearly  ? 

270.  22. — Beranger.  Beranger  was  born  at  Paris  in  1780,  and 
died  in  1857.  He  published  his  first  collection  of  songs  in  1815. 
He  passed  three  months  in  prison  and  paid  a  fine  of  three  hun- 
dred francs.  In  1828  he  was  imprisoned  for  nine  months  and 
paid  a  fine  of  ten  thousand  francs.  These  punishments  were  in- 
flicted upon  him  for  political  reasons,  on  account  of  the  satirical 
tendency  of  some  of  his  verses;  but  as  may 'easily  be  imagined, 
they  did  not  injure  the  popularity  of  his  poetry.  Beranger  is  one 
of  the  most  natural,  graceful,  and  tuneful  lyrical  poets  that  France 
has  ever  produced.  And  the  stirring  effect  of  his  poems  and 
songs  on  his  countrymen  was  very  great. 

271.  II. — Ai</>20-ii  and  Wakefield.  See  page  274,  line  7.  Wake- 
field is  in  Yorkshire,  England. 

275.  38. — Atid  dra^s,  etc.  Although  this  famous  line  is  orig- 
inal with  Goldsmith,  he  wrote  it  first  in  prose,  and  then  trans- 
ferred it  to  his  poetry.  In  the  Citizen  of  the  World,  Letter  III,  he 
says  :    "By  every  remove  I  only  drag  a  greater  length  of  chain." 

276.  9. — Elphin.  This  is  in  the  county  of  Roscommon,  in 
about  the  center  of  Ireland. 


350  NOTES. 

276.    15. Kitid  uncle    Contarine.      Mr.    Contarine  was   "the 

only  member  of  the  Goldsmith  family  of  whom  we  have  solid  evi- 
dence that  he  at  any  time  took  pains  with  Oliver,  or  felt  anything 
like  a  real  pride  in  him.  He  bore  the  greater  part  of  his  school 
expenses  ;  and  was  wont  to  receive  him  with  delight  in  holidays." 
Forster's  Life  of  Goldsmith,  page  17. 

276.   20. — Everybody  kno7vs  the  story.     The  story,  of  course, 
on  which  the  great  play,  She  Stoops  to  Conquer,  was  founded. 

"At  the  close  of  his  last  holidays,  then  a  lad  of  nearly  seven- 
teen, he  left  home  for  Edgeworthstown,  mounted  on  a  borrowed 
hack  which  a  friend  was  to  restore  to  Lissoy,  and  with  store  of 
unaccustomed  wealth,  a  guinea,  in  his  pocket.  The  delicious  taste 
of  independence  beguiled  him  to  a  loitering,  lingering,  pleasant 
enjoyment  of  the  journey;  and,  instead  of  finding  himself  under 
Mr.  Hughes's  roof  at  nightfall,  night  fell  upon  him  some  two  or 
three  miles  out  of  the  direct  road,  in  the  middle  of  the  streets  of 
Ardagh.  But  nothing  could  disconcert  the  owner  of  the  guinea, 
who,  with  a  lofty,  confident  air,  inquired  of  a  person  passing  the 
way  to  the  town's  best  house  of  entertainment.  The  man  ad- 
dressed was  the  wag  of  Ardagh,  a  humorous  fencing-master,  Mr. 
Cornelius  Kelly,  and  the  schoolboy  swagger  was  irresistible  pro- 
vocation to  a  jest.  Submissively  he  turned  back  with  horse  and 
rider  till  they  came  within  a  pace  or  two  of  the  great  Squire 
Featherston's,  to  which  he  respectfully  pointed  as  the  '  best  house ' 
(jf  Ardagh.  Oliver  rang  at  the  gate,  gave  his  beast  in  charge 
with  authoritative  rigour,  and  was  shown,  as  a  supposed  expected 
guest,  into  the  comfortable  parlour  of  the  squire.  Those  were 
days  when  Irish  inn-keepers  and  Irish  squires  more  nearly  ap- 
proximated than  now  ;  and  Mr.  Featherston,  unlike  the  excellent 
but  explosive  Mr.  Hardcastle,  is  said  to  have  seen  the  mistake 
and  humoured  it.  Oliver  had  a  supper  which  gave  him  so  much 
satisfaction,  that  he  ordered  a  bottle  of  wine  to  follow;  and  the 
attentive  landlord  was  not  only  forced  to  drink  with  him,  but  with 
a  like  familiar  condescension,  the  wife  and  pretty  daughter  were 
invited  to  the  supper-room.  Going  to  bed,  he  stopped  to  give 
special  instructions  for  a  hot  cake  to  breakfast  ;  and  it  was  not 
till  he  had  despatched  this  latter  meal,  and  was  looking  at  his 
guinea  with   pathetic  aspect   of  farewell,  that  the  truth  was  told 


NOTES.  351 

him  by  the  good-natured  squire." — Forster's  Life  of  Goldsmith, 
page  14.  Ardagh  and  Edgeworthstown  are  in  the  county  of  Long- 
ford, in  the  central  part  of  Ireland. 

2170.  8. —  Wrote  j?iosf  amusing  pompous  letter's.  "  After  having 
spent  two  winters  in  Edinburgh,  I  now  prepare  to  go  to  France 
the  loth  of  next  February.  I  have  seen  all  that  this  country  can 
exhibit  in  the  medical  way,  and  therefore  intend  to  visit  Paris, 
where  the  great  Mr.  Farhein,  Petit,  and  Du  Hammel  de  Monceau 
instruct  their  pupil?  in  all  the  branches  of  medicine.  They  speak 
French,  and  consequently  I  shall  have  much  the  advantage  of  most 
of  my  countrymen,  as  I  am  perfectly  acquainted  with  that  lan- 
guage, and  few  who  leave  Ireland  are  so." — Prior's  Life  of  Gold- 
smith, I,  155.  Neither  Goldsmith  nor  Thackeray  knew  how  to 
spell  the  name  of  "the  great  Farheim  "  correctly.  The  person  in 
question  was  Antoine  Ferrein  (1692-1769),  a  distinguished  man  in 
his  day.  In  1742  he  was  made  Professor  of  Medicine  and  Sur- 
gery at  the  Royal  College  in  Paris.  Petit,  or,  as  Thackeray  er- 
roneously calls  hiraDii  Petit,  was  born  at  Orleans  in  17 18,  and  was 
a  famous  and  excellent  lecturer  at  Paris.  After  the  death  of  Fer- 
rein, he  held  the  chair  of  Anatomy  at  the  Jardin  du  Roi.  The 
Jardin  du  Roi  is  the  same  as  what  is  now  called  the  Jardin  des 
Plantes,  and  has  a  Museum  of  Natural  History.  The  Professorial 
chairs  in  this  great  institution  go  back  to  the  seventeenth  century. 
Petit  died  in  1794.  In  the  Biographisches  Lexicon  der  Hervor- 
ragende7i  Aerzte  aller  Zeiten  und  Volker,  ed.  Hirsch,  Wien  und 
Leipzig,  1885,  the  third  doctor  that  Goldsmith  mentions  does  not 
appear,  either  in  Goldsmith's  or  Thackeray's  orthography.  The 
man  in  question,  however,  is  probably  Henri  Louis  Duhamel- 
Dumonceau  (1700-1782),  a  great  French  botanist.  He  produced 
many  works  on  plants  and  agriculture,  and  was  a  thoroughly 
scientific  writer. 

279.  12. — If  Olive?-'' s  mother  Relieved.  This  highly  interesting 
letter  may  be  read  in  Prior's  Life  of  Goldsmith,  I,  119.  It  is  well 
worth  reading,  though  it  is  too  long  to  quote  here. 

275.  19. — Ballymahon.  This  is  in  the  county  of  Longford, 
south  01  Ardagh. 

279.  29.  —  ^'- Btd'vie  7iot  destined,'"  ^Vc.     From  the  Traveller. 

280.  5. — I  spoke  in  a  former  lecture.     See  page  244,  et  seq. 


352  AOTES. 

282.  8.  —  The  Court  patronized  Beattic'.  James  Beattie  (1735- 
1803),  famous  chiefly  as  the  author  of  the  long  Spenserian  poem, 
The  Minstrel. 

2S2.  10. — Fashion  pronounced  Kelly.  Hugh  Kelly  (1739- 
1777),  a  dramatist.  His  play,  False  Delicacy,  a  sentimental  and 
weak  comedy,  was  produced  at  Drury  Lane  on  January  23,  1768, 
six  days  before  Goldsmith's  Good. A'atured  Man.  It  was  very  suc- 
cessful on  the  stage,  and  on  the  day  it  was  printed  three  thousand 
copies  were  sold  before  two  o'clock.  It  was  translated  into  Ger- 
man, French,  and  Portuguese.  Goldsmith  and  Kelly  quarrelled 
over  this  matter  and  never  spoke  again.  But  Kelly  attended 
Goldsmith's  funeral  and  stood  weeping  at  the  grave. 

282.  15. — Newbery  kept  back  the  mamtscript.  There  were 
several  publishers  contemporary  with  Goldsmith  of  the  name  of 
Newbery— John,  his  son  Francis,  and  Francis,  the  first  cousin  of 
the  latter.  This  cousin  was  closely  allied  with  his  uncle  in  the 
publishing  business,  and  it  was  he  who  published  the  Vicar  oj 
Wakefield.  It  appeared  on  March  27,  1766  ;  and  it  had  been 
held  by  Newbery  until  the  success  of  The  Traveller  had  fully 
established  Goldsmith's  reputation.  The  book  was  partly  written 
as  early  as  1762  ;  and  had  Goldsmith  shown  any  care  in  money 
matters,  its  publication  need  not  have  been  delayed. 

Goldsmith's  four  most  famous  works.  The  Traveller,  The  Vicar 
of  Wakefield,  The  Deserted  Village,  and  She  Stoops  to  Concjuer, 
appeared  in  1764,  1766,  1770,  and  1773,  respectively.  He  died 
in  1774. 

283.  I.  —  Colmau's  actors.  George  Colman  the  elder  (1732- 
1794)  was  a  prominent  dramatist  and  manager  of  the  times,  and 
should  not  be  confused  with  his  more  famous  son.  Goldsmith 
had  written  She  Stoops  to  Conqjier  in  1771.  It  was  offered  to 
Colman  the  next  year.  He  hesitated  about  accepting  it  until 
January,  1773,  when  he  succumbed  to  the  entreaties  of  Dr.  John- 
son. Colman's  doubts  and  fears  were  increased  by  his  actors, 
some  of  whom  threw  up  their  parts  in  disgust,  believing  the  play 
would  fail  utterly.  Finally  it  was  performed  at  Covent  Garden 
March  15,  1773.  Dr.  Johnson  led  a  party  of  friends  to  the  per- 
formance on  the  opening  night,  where  he  had  the  gratification  of 
seeing    the  play  make   a  tremendous   hit.     The  success  of  this 


A'OTES.  353 

drama  did  much  to  destroy  the  prevailing  sentimental  comedy, 
which  at  that  time  was  in  great  vogue.  The  chief  mistake  of 
the  sentimental  comedy  was  that  it  did  not  make  the  spectators 
laugh  ;  and  when  Englishmen  go  to  see  a  comedy  they  want  to 
laugh  without  trying  to.  In  this  respect  Goldsmith's  play  has 
never  been  found  wanting,  and,  when  well  acted,  it  is  to-day  one 
of  the  most  laughable  pieces  on  the  stage.  Its  wholesome  laugh- 
ter is  needed  now  to  clear  the  air,  as  it  did  in  the  eighteenth 
century. 

283.  5-  —  The  admirable  Reynolds.  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  (1723- 
1792),  the  great  portrait  painter,  and  favourite  companion  of 
Johnson  and  of  all  the  wits  of  the  day.  The  charm  of  his  person- 
ality affects  everyone  who  is  familiar  with  the  men  and  manners 
of  the  age  of  Johnson.  No  wonder  that  Goldsmith  was  cheerful 
under  misfortunes  when  he  had  such  a  circle' of  friends  as  John- 
son, Reynolds,  Gibbon,  and  Burke.  The  conversation  of  such 
men  would  atone  for  many  sorrows. 

283.  7. — -The great  Fox.  Charles  James  Fox  (j 749- 1 806),  the 
great  Parliamentary  orator  and  statesman.  He  was  unselfish, 
good-tempered,  dissipated,  and  a  warm  popular  favourite.  He 
lies  buried  in  Westminster  Abbey  close  by  the  grave  of  Pitt.  In 
the  novel  Richard  Carvel  there  is  a  highly-coloured  portrait  of 
Fox,  showing  his  dissipation  and  his  personal  magnetism. 

283.  28.  —  To  one  Griffiths,  a  bookseller.  This  extraordinary 
letter,  together  with  further  information  on  Griffiths,  may  be 
found  in  Forster's  Life  of  Goldsmith,  page  102.  The  letter  is  too 
long  to  quote  here  ;  but  the  student  of  Goldsmith  should  certainly 
look  it  up  in  Forster. 

285.  27. — Edgware  Road.  The  Biographical  edition  follows 
the  first  edition  of  the  Humourists  in  this  misprint  for  "  Edge- 
ware."  The  quotation  may  be  found  in  Boswell's  Life  of  John- 
son, ed.  Hill,  II,  209. 

285.  31- — Mickle,  the  translator  of  the  Lusiad.  William  Julius 
Mickle  (1735-1788)  was  a  poet  who  enjoyed  considerable  popu- 
larity in  his  time,  some  of  which  he  deserved.  He  belongs  to 
the  eighteenth  century  group  of  Spenserian  imitators  by  virtue  of 
his  poem.  The  Concubine  (i^G"]),  the  title  of  which  he  afterward 
changed  to  Syr  Martyn.     See  Professor  H.  A.  Beers's  History  of 


354  NOTES. 

English  Romanticism  in  the  Eighteenth  Centttry,  page  95.  The 
Lusiad  was  a  translation  of  the  great  Portuguese  poem  by  Ca- 
moens,  Os  Lusiadas.  Mickle's  translation  was  published  in 
1775,  and  was  very  successful.  Camoens  (1524-1580)  is  the 
foremost  epic  and  lyric  poet  of  Portugal.  His  great  work  was 
published  in  1572,  and  although  it  brought  him  immense  fame 
and  popularity,  he  continued  to  live  in  unrelieved  poverty.  The 
Lusiad,  or,  more  properly,  the  Lusiads,  is  the  great  national 
poem  of  Portuguese  literature  and  its  representative  epic.  Be- 
sides this  translation,  Mickle  wrote  some  short  ballads  which 
have  great  charm. 

287.  I. — IIe>e,  as  I  lake.      From  the  Deserted  Village. 

288.  9.  —  The  Irish  Yvetot.  The  idea  suggested. by  the  word 
'•Yvetot"  here  is  "miniature  kingdom."  Yvetot  is  a  small 
town  in  Normandy  near  Le  Havre.  The  lords  of  Yvetot  got  the 
title  of  King  in  the  fifteenth  century.  Thackeray  probably  had 
in  mind  Beranger's  beautiful  ballad  Le  Roi  d'  Yvetot,  composed 
in  1813,  where,  of  course,  the  reference  is  to  Napoleon.  This 
lyric  is  so  charming  that  it  is  worth  while  to  quote  it  here  : 

II  ^tait  un  roi  d"Yvetot 

Peu  connu  dans  I'histoire, 
Se  levant  tard,  se  couchant  tot. 

Dormant  fort  bien  sans  gloire, 
Et  couroniid  par  Jeanneton 
D'un  simple  bonnet  de  colon, 

Dit-on. 
Oh !  oh  !  oh  !  oh  !  ah  !  ah  !  ah  !  ah  ! 
Quel  bon  petit  roi  c'etait  li  ! 
La,  la. 

II  faisait  ses  quatre  repas 

Dans  son  palais  de  chaume, 
Et  sur  un  une,  pas  \  pas, 

Parcourait  son  royaume. 
Joyeux,  simple  el  croyant  le  bien. 
Pour  toute  garde  il  n'avait  rien 

Qu'un  chien. 
Oh  !  oh  !  oh  !  oh  !  etc. 

II  n'avait  de  gout  on^reux 

Qu'une  soif  un  peu  vive  ; 
Mais,  en  rendant  son  peuple  heureux, 

II  faul  bien  qu"un  roi  vive. 


NOTES.  355 

Lui-meme,  Jl  table,  et  sans  suppot, 
Sur  chaque  rauid  levrit  un  pot 

D'impot. 
Oh  !  oh  !  oh  !  oh  !  etc. 

Aux  filles  de  bonnes  maisons 

Comme  il  avait  su  plaire, 
Ses  sujets  avaient  cent  raisons 

De  le  nommer  leur  pere. 
D"ailleurs,  il  ne  levait  de  ban 
yue  pour  tirer,  quatre  fois  Tan, 

Au  blanc. 
Oh  !  oh  !  oh  !  oh  !  etc. 

II  n'agrandit  point  ses  Etats 

Fut  un  voisin  commode, 
Et,  modfele  des  potentats, 

Prit  ie  plaisir  pour  code. 
Ce  rf'est  que  ,'orsqu'il  expira 
Que  le  peuple,  qui  Tenterra, 

Pleura. 
Oh  !  oh!  oh  !  oh  !  etc. 

On  conserve  encor  le  portrait 
De  ce  digne  et  bon  prince  : 
C'est  Tenseigne  d'un  cabaret 

Fameux  dans  la  province. 
Les  jours  de  fete,  bien  souvent, 
La  foule  s'ecrie  erl  buvant 

Devant: 
Oh  !  oh  !  oh  !  oh  !  etc. 

Thackeray's    own    imitation  of   this  ballad    is  interesting  (see 
Works,  Biographical  edition,  XIII,  137). 

There  was  a  king  of  Yvetot, 

Of  whom  renown  hath  little  said, 
Who  let  all  thoughts  of  glory  go. 

And  dawdled  half  his  days  abed  ; 
And  every  night,  as  night  came  roun 
By  Jenny  with  a  nightcap  crowned, 
Slept  very  sound: 

Sing  ho,  ho,  ho  !  and  he,  he,  he  I 

That's  the  kind  of  king  for  me. 

And  every  day  it  came  to  pass. 

That  four  lusty  meals  made  he  ; 
And,  step  by  step,  upon  an  ass. 

Rode  abroad,  his' realms  to  see  ; 


356  NOTES. 

And  wherever  he  did  stir, 
What  think  you  was  his  escort,  sir  ? 
Why,  an  old  cur. 
Sing  ho,  ho,  ho  !  &c. 

If  e'er  he  went  into  excess, 

'Twas  from  a  somewhat  lively  thirst  ; 
But  he  who  would  his  subjects  bless. 

Odd's  fish  ! — must  wet  his  whistle  first; 
And  so  from  every  cask  they  got, 
Our  king  did  to  himself  allot 
At  least  a  pot. 

Sing  ho,  ho  !  &c. 

To  all  the  ladies  of  the  land, 

A  courteous  king,  and  kind,  was  he — 
The  reason  why,  you'll  understand. 

They  named  him  Pater  Patriae. 
Each  year  he  called  his  fighting  men. 
And  marched  a  league  from  home,  and  then 
Marched  back  again. 

Sing  ho,  ho  !  &c. 

Neither  by  force  nor  false  pretence, 
He  sought  to  make  his  kingdom  great, 

And  made  (O  princes,  learn  from  hence) — 
"  Live  and  let  live,"  his  rule  of  state. 

'Twas  only  when  he  came  to  die, 

That  his  people  who  stood  by, 
Were  known  to  cry. 
Sing  ho,  ho  !  &c. 

The  portrait  of  this  best  of  kings 

Is  extant  still,  upon  a  sign 
That  on  a  village  tavern  swings, 

Famed  in  the  country  for  good  wine. 
The  people  in  their  Sunday  trim, 
Filling  their  glasses  to  the  brim. 

Look  up  to  him, 
Singing  ha,  ha,  ha  !  and  he,  he,  he  ! 
That's  the  sort  of  king  for  me. 

288.  12.  Goldsmith' s  incessant  desire.  This  passage  may  be 
found  in  Hill's  edition  of  Boswell's  yohnson,  II,  295. 

288-  34- — Beaiiclerk.  Topham  Beauclerk  (1739-1780),  one  of 
Johnson's  famous  circle  of  friends.  He  was  a  cultivated  man  of 
the  world,  and  had  a  library  of  thirty  thousand  volumes.  He 
was  greatly  beloved  by  the  Doctor. 


NOTES.  35^ 

288.  35. —  Tom  Davies.  Thomas  Davies  (1712  ?-i785),  was  a 
book-seller.  For  some  time  he  was  a  strolling  actor.  According 
to  Johnson,  he  was  driven  from  the  stage  by  a  line  of  Churchill's: 

"  He  mouths  a  sentence  as  curs  mouth  a  bone." 

The  best  thing  Davies  ever  did  was  to  introduce  Boswell  to 
Johnson,  which  intnjduction  is  graphically  described  by  the 
former  in  his  great  Life.     See  Hill's  edition,  I,  453. 

289.  8. — 'Raiielagh.  This  vied  with  Vauxhall  Gardens  in 
being  the  great  pleasure  resort  of  Londoners  in  the  eighteenth 
century.  It  stood  on  the  south  side  of  Hans  Place,  Chelsea. 
Toward  the  end  of  the  reign  of  William  III,  Viscount  Ranelagh 
had  a  villa  built  at  Chelsea,  and  gardens  laid  out  there.  He  died 
in  1 7 12.  Later  the  estate  was  leased  by  two  partners,  and  a 
company  of  shareholders  formed,  who  converted  it  into  a  place  of 
amusement.  In  May,  1742,  Ranelagh  was  opened  with  a  big 
celebration.  It  was  frequented  by  dandies,  high  livers,  and 
women  whose  reputation  could  not  be  doubted.  There  is  a  good 
description  of  Ranelagh  in  Smollett's  Humphry  Clinke?'. 

289.  8. —  The  Pantheon.  The  Pantheon  was  a  splendid  build- 
ing, meant  chiefly  for  a  fashionable  resort  in  winter.  It  was 
finished  in  January,  1772,  at  a  cost  of  sixty  thousand  pounds. 
Masquerade  balls  were  generally  given  in  the  Pantheon,  and 
George  III  and  the  nobility  freely  patronised  the  place.  Its 
reputation,  however,  became  a  little  shady.  On  a  fearfully  cold 
night  in  1792  it  was  destroyed  by  fire. 

289.  9- — Aladame  Comely s.  Theresa  Cornelys  (i 723-1797), 
was  born  at  Venice,  and  was  the  daughter  of  an  actor.  At  the 
age  of  seventeen  she  became  the  mistress  of  an  Italian  senator, 
and  later  was  famous  as  a  sirger.  She  took  the  name  of  Cornelys 
from  a  gentleman  at  Amsterdam.  In  1760  she  bought  Carlisle 
House  in  Soho  Square,  London,  and  became  a  manager  of  public 
Assemblies.  She  advertised  on  a  large  scale,  and  the  leading 
men  and  women  in  society  subscribed  to  her  balls.  But  the 
opening  of  the  Pantheon  ruined  her  business,  and  in  that  year 
(1772)  she  was  a  bankrupt.  After  this  misfortune  she  had  a 
varied  career,  and  finally  died  in  the  Fleet  Prison,  on  the  19th  of 
August,  1797.      "Sir  John  Hawkins,  when  writing  his   'Life  of 


358  NOTES. 

Dr.  Johnson. '  about  ten  j'ears  before  she  died,  paid  the  following 
tribute  to  her  memory,  evidently  in  ignorance  of  the  fact  that  she 
was  then  alive  :  '  For  most  of  the  refinements  in  our  public  diver- 
sions we  are  indebted  to  the  late  Mrs.  Cornelys,  to  whose  elegant 
taste  for  pleasure  the  magistrates  of  Turin  and  Brussels  were  so 
blind,  and  of  her  worth  so  insensible,  that  .  .  .  they  severally 
drove  her  out  of  both  those  cities.  This  hospitable  country,  how- 
ever, afforded  her  an  asylum,  and  in  Westminster  she  was  per- 
mitted to  improve  our  manners.'  " — Sydney's  England  mid  the 
English  in  the  Eighteenth  Century,  I,  148. 

289.  10. —  The  Jessatny  Bride.  Mary  Horneck,  an  intimate 
friend  of  Goldsmith,  at  whose  mother's  house  he  was  a  frequent 
visitor.  There  were  two  daughters  in  the  family,  Catherine  and 
Mary,  who  were  nineteen  and  seventeen  years  of  age  respectively, 
when  Goldsmith  became  intimately  acquainted  with  them.  They 
w',re  exceedingly  beautiful  girls,  and  Goldsmith  called  them  by 
the  pet  names  "Little  Comedy"  and  "The  Jessamy  Bride." 
The  friendship  of  the  poet  for  Mary  was  commented  on  in  his 
own  day,  and  one  of  his  enemies  pretended  that  Goldsmith  was 
hopelessly  in  love  with  her,  which  led  to  a  fierce  quarrel  ;  and 
some  of  his  later  biographers  who  delight  in  romantic  adventures 
have  maintained  that  there  was  much  more  than  mere  friendship  ; 
but  in  the  absence  of  evidence,  it  seems  best  to  believe  that  the 
mature  and  impossible  Goldsmith  and  the  lovely  and  affectionate 
girl  were  the  best  of  comrades  and  nothing  more.  She  would 
doubtless  be  amused  and  delighted  with  Goldsmith's  conversation, 
and  their  frank  camaraderie  was  probably  better  understood  by 
them  than  by  their  biographers.  She  afterwards  became  Mrs. 
Gwyn,  and  died  in  1840.  She  gave  her  recollections  of  Gold- 
smith to  Prior,  who  wrote  the  Life  of  Goldsmith,  and  these 
recollections  contain  some  of  the  best-known  anecdotes  of  the 
poet's  later  life.  If  one  wishes  to  view  the  relations  between 
Mary  Horneck  and  Goldsmith  from  the  extreme  romantic  point  of 
view,  and  at  the  same  time  to  get  an  anti-Boswellian  conception 
of  the  poet's  personal  character,  one  cannot  do  better  than  read 
the  pleasantly  written  novel.  The  jfessamy  Bride  (1897),  by 
Frankfort  Moore. 

289.    15.  —  Bunbtiry.      Ilcnry   William    Bunbury    (1750-1811), 


NOTES.  359 

was  an  artist  and  caricaturist.  He  was  married  to  Catherine 
Horneck,  the  beautiful  older  sister  of  the  '•  Jessamy  Bride,"  in 
1 77 1.  He  published  a  series  of  burlesque  illustrations  to  Tris- 
tram  Shattdy.  Personally  he  was  very  attractive,  and  was  on  the 
best  terms  with  the  most  famous  men  of  his  day. 

289.  16. — Gilray.  Thackeray  misspells  the  name.  James 
Gillray  (1757-1815),  a  famous  caricaturist.  His  satirical  powers, 
which,  unlike  Bunbury,  he  cliose  to  cultivate,  were  very  great; 
and  his  skill  in  ridicule,  together  with  his  daring  freedom  ih  using 
it,  became  the  terror  of  his  victims.  He  was  enormously  popular; 
but  unfortunately  he  took  to  drink,  and  finally  lost  his  mind. 

289.  2g.-— Something^  must  he  allowed.  Boswell's  portrait  of 
Goldsmith,  though  exceedingly. irritating  to  the  passionate  lovers 
of  the  poet,  is  probably  in  the  main  correct.  The  peculiarities 
that  Boswell  describes  so  graphically  were  Goldsmith's  own  ;  and 
because  a  picture  is  unsympathetic,  it  does  not  follow  that  it  is 
untrue.  The  word  "talent"  applied  to  Boswell  in  line  35  is  not 
the  right  word.  Boswell  was  a  genius,  and  one  of  the  great  Eng- 
lish writers. 

290.  7. — H'e  asked  for  a  loan  from  Garrick.  For  a  begging 
letter  to  the  great  actor,  and  the  acknowledgment  of  the  money 
received,  see  Forster's  Life  of  Goldsmith,  pages  447,  448. 

290.  9. — Barton.  Great  Barton,  in  the  county  of  Suffolk, 
England,  was  Bunbury's  house,  where  Goldsmith  frequently  saw 
his  friends. 

290.  14. — Hazlitt.  William  Hazlitt  (1778-1830),  the  famous 
essayist. 

290.  15. — Northcote' s  painting-room.  James  Northcote  (1746- 
1831),  a  well-known  painter  and  member  of  the  Royal  Academy. 
He  excelled  principally  in  the  painting  of  portraits.  He  had  lit- 
erary aspirations  as  well,  and  in  1813  published  a  memoir  of 
Reynolds,  which  is  the  source  of  the  later  biographies  of  that  art- 
ist. Hazlitt  knew  Northcote  intimately,  and  delighted  in  his  con- 
versation, of  which  he  kept  full  notes. 

290.  17. —  The  Yotmger  Colman.  George  Colman  the  Younger 
(1762-1836)  was  the  son  of  the  dramatist  of  the  same  name.  See 
note  to  page  383,  line  i.  His  best  play,  the  Heir  at  Law,  still 
holds  the  boards.     The  quotation  given  here  is  from  Colman's 


360  NO  TES. 

Random  Records,  published  in  183 1;  and  in  that  edition  the  pas- 
sage occurs  in  Vol.  I,  pages  1 10-12,  and  not  where  Thackeray 
gives  it.  Furthermore,  Thackeray  has  garbled  and  inaccurately 
quoted  the  passage,  though  not  to  change  its  significance. 

295.  22. — Grand  homine  incompris.  The  great  man  not 
understood. 

296.  17. —  Who  shall  say  that  our  country.  Thackeray  had 
no  sympathy  with  writers  who  turned  sour  because  their  books 
would  *not  sell,  and  blamed  the  public  for  not  appreciating  their 
genius.  He  saw  clearly  enough  that  a  writer  who  really  has 
genius  will  sooner  or  later  take  his  proper  place  in  the  annals  of 
literature.  A  high  place  and  a  permanent  one  is  occupied  by  the 
lecturer  himself,  and  if  some  one  were  to  write  a  book  on  the  Eng- 
lish Humourists  of  the  Nineteenth  Century,  the  name  of  Thack- 
eray would  be  found  among  the  foremost,  as  well  as  the  most 
honoured  and  respected,  which  cannot  be  said  of  all  the  men 
whom  he  discussed  in  his  lectures. 


EnalisF)  IReaMiujs  tor  Stu^ents. 

English  niaslerpieccs  in  editions  at  once  competently  edited  and 
inexpensive.  The  aim  is  to  fill  vacancies  now  existing  because  of 
subject,  treatment,  or  price.    Prices  given  below  are 'H^'X.    i6mo.  Cloth. 

Arnold  (Matthew):  Prose  Selections.  Edited  by  Prof.  Lewis 
E.  Gates  of  Harvard,     xci  +  348  pp.     90c. 

Includes  :  The  Function  of  Criticism,  First  Lecture  on  Translating 
Homer,  Literature  and  Science,  Culture  and  Anarchy,  Sweetness  and 
Light,  Compulsory  Education,  "Life  a  Dream,"  Emerson,  and 
twelve  shorter  selections,  including  America. 

Prof.  Bliss  Perry  o/  Princeton  :  "  The  selections  seem  to  me  most  happy, 
and  the  introduction  is  even  better,  if  possible,  than  his  introduction  to  the  New- 
man volume.  Indeed,  I  have  read  no  criticism  of  Arnold's  prose  which  appears 
to  me  as  luminous  and  just,  and  expressed  with  such  literary  charm." 

Browning :  Selected  Lyrical  and  Dramatic  Poems.  With  the 
essay  on  Browning  from  E.  C.  Stedman's  "Victorian  Poets." 
Edited  by  Edward  T.  Mason.     275  pp.     60c. 

Burke  :  Selections.  Edited  by  Bliss  Perry,  sometime  Professor 
in  Princeton,     xxvi  +  298  pp.     60c. 

Contents  :  Speeches  at  Arrival  at  Bristol,  at  Conclusion  of  the 
Poll  ;  Letters  to  the  Marquis  of  Rockingham,  to  the  Sheriffs  of 
Bristol,  and  to  a  Noble  Lord  ;  Address  to  the  King  ;  Selections 
from  the  Sublime  and  the  Beautiful,  from  Thoughts  on  the  Present 
Discontents,  from  Speech  on  the  Nabob  of  Arcot's  Debts,  from 
Impeachment  of  Hastings  (2),  from  Reflections  on  the  Revolution  in 
France  (7,  including  Fiat  Money). 

Edward  Dowden,  the  author  and  critic:  "They  seem  to  me  admirably 
chosen  and  arranged,  and  the  introduction  brings  various  aspects  of  Burke's  mind 
truly  and  vividly  before  the  reader." 

Coleridge :  Prose  Extracts.  Edited  by  Prof.  Henry  A.  Beers 
of  Yale.     xix+i48pp.     50c, 

The  selections,  varying  in  length  from  a  paragraph  to  ten  or 
twenty  pages,  are  mainly  from  Table  Talk  and  Biographia  Literaria, 
but  also  from  Ahtes  on  Shakespeare,  etc. 


English  1{eadiugs  for  Students. 


De  Quincey :  Joan  of  Arc  ;   The  Mail  Coach.     Edited  by  Prof. 
Jamks  Morgan  Hart  of  Cornell.     >;xvi-|-i3S  pp.     50c. 

The  introduction  sketches  De  Quincey's  life  and  style.  Allusions 
and  other  difficult  points  are  explained  in  the  notes.  This  volume 
and  the  Essays  on  BosiveWs  Johnson  (see  under  Macaulay)  are  used 
at  Cornell  for  elementary  rhetorical  study. 

Dryden  :  Essays  on  the  Drama.  Edited  by  Dr.  Wm.  Strunk, 
Jr.,  of  Cornell,     .\xxviii-j-i8o  pp.     50c. 

This  volume  contains  The  Essay  of  Dramatic  Poesy  and,  among 
the  critical  prefaces.  Of  Heroic  Plays  and  The  Grounds  of  Criticism 
in  Tragedy.  These  are  not  only  excellent  specimens  of  Classical 
English,  but  also  have  a  high  reputation  for  the  value  of  their  literary 
opinions.  The  introduction,  besides  treating  of  Dryden's  life  and 
prose  style,  sets  forth  clearly  how  he  used  the  theories  of  the  drama 
which  he  found  in  Aristotle,  Horace,  and  Corneille. 

Ford:  The  Broken  Heart.  A  Spartan  Tragedy  in  verse. 
Edited  by  Prof.  Clinton  Scollard  of  Hamilton  College. 
xvi-|-i32  pp.     50c.     (Buckram,  70c.) 

A  play  notable  for  its  repressed  emotion  and  psychological  interest. 
Charles  Lamb  wrote  :  "  I  do  not  know  where  to  find  in  any  play  a 
catastrophe  so  grand,  so  solemn,  and  so  surprising  as  this  "  [of  The 
Broken  Heart\. 

Johnson  :  Rasselas.  Edited  by  Prof.  Oliver  Farrar  Emerson 
of  Adalbert.     Ivi-|-I79  PP-     50c.     (Buckram,  70c.) 

The  introduction  treats  of  Johnson's  style,  the  circumstances  under 
which  Rasselas  was  written,  and  its  place  in  the  history  of  fiction. 
The  notes  explain  allusions  and  trace  the  sources  of  some  ol 
Johnson's  materials. 

Landor :     Selections    from    the     Imaginary    Conversations. 

Edited    by    Prof.  A.   G.   NEWCOMER    of    Stanford    University 
lix-(-i66  pp.     50c. 

Sixteen  of  the  "  Conversations,"  which  have  been  chosen  especiall). 
because  of  their  vital  and  stimulating  character,  which  appeah 
strongly  to  the  young  student. 


English  'fadings  for  Students. 


Lyly  :  Endimion.  Edited  by  Prof.  Geo.  P.  Baker  of  Harvard. 
cxcvi-(-i09  pp.     85c. 

The  Academy,  London  : — "  It  is  refreshing  to  come  upon  such  a  piece  of 
sterling  work  ;  .  .  .  the  most  complete  and  satisfactory  account  of  Lyly  that 
has  yet  appeared." 

Macaulay  and  Carlyle  :  Essays  on  Samuel  Johnson,  Edited 
by  Dr.  William  Strunk  of  Cornell,     xl-j-191  pp.     50c. 

These  two  essays  present  a  conslant  contrast  in  intellectual  and 
moral  methods  of  criticism,  and  offer  an  excellent  introduction  to  the 
study  of  the  literary  history  of  Johnson's  times. 

Marlowe:  Edward  II.  With  the  best  passages  from  Tamburlaine 
the  Great,  and  from  his  Poems.  Edited  by  the  late  Prof. 
Edward  T.  McLaughlin  of  Yale,     xxi  +  180  pp.     50c. 

Edward  IT.  is  not  only  a  remarkable  play,  but  is  of  great  interest 
in  connection  with  Shakespere's  Richard  II.  A  comparison  of  the 
two  plays  is  sketched  in  the  introduction, 

Newman  :  Prose  Selections.  Edited  by  Prof.  Lewis  E.  Gates 
of  Harvard.     lxii4-228  pp.      50c. 

Prof.  R.  G.  Moulton  of  Uni7iersiiy  of  Chicago  :  "  I  am  generally  suspicious 
of  books  of  selections,  but  I  think  Newman  makes  an  exceptional  case.  .  .  The 
selection  seems  excellent,  and  the  introduction  is  well  balanced  between  points  of 
form  and  matter.  The  whole  has  one  special  merit  :  it  is  interesting  in  a  high 
degree." 

Tennyson  :  The  Princess.  Edited,  with  introduction,  notes,  and 
analytic  questions,  by  Prof.  L.  A.  Sherman  of  the  University 
of  Nebraska.     Ixi-|-i85  pp.     60c. 

N.  E.  Journal  of  Education  : — "The  pupil  will  gain  materially  from  such 
a  thorough  and  discerning  study  of  the  poem  as  this  edition  presents." 

Thackeray  :  English  Humorists.  Edited,  with  an  introduction 
and  notes,  by   Prof.  Wm.   Lyon  Phelps  of  Yale. 

The  features  of  this  new  edition  are  a  brief  biographical  and 
critical  introduction,  together  with  explanatory  and  critical  notes. 
The  notes  explain  all  literary  and  other  allusions. 

HcNKY      HULl      ex     CO,,     378  Wabash  Xve,  Chicago. 


English  'Tradings  for  Students. 


Specimens  of  prose  Composition. 

Forms  of  Discourse.     Edited   by   Prof.   E.   H.   Lewis  of  Lewis 
Institute,  Chicago.     367  pp.     l6mo.     60c.,  net. 

A  compact  manual,  illustrated  by  58  selections,  chiefly  from  our 
contemporary  authors,  and  designed  to  cover  the  field  of  the  four 
volumes  below,  where  there  is  not  time  for  such  extended  work. 

Prose  Narration.     Edited  by  Dr.  \V.  T.  Brewster  of  Columbia. 
xx.\viii-|-209  pp.      l6mo.      50c.,  ttet. 

Includes  Selections  from  Scott,  Thackeray,  Hawthorne,  Jane 
Austen,  George  Eliot,  Stevenson,  and  Henry  James.  Part  I.  Ele- 
ments— Plot,  Character,  Setting,  and  Purpose.  II.  Combination 
of  the  Elements.  III.  Various  Kinds.  IV.  Technique  of  Good 
Narrative. 

Prose    Description.      Edited    by    Dr.    Chas.   Sears   Baldwin, 
of  Yale.     xlviii-[-i45  pp.     i6mo.      ^oc,  net. 

Includes  :  Ancient  Athens  (Newman);  Paris  before  the  Second 
Empire  (du  Maurier);  Byzantium  (Gibbon);  Geneva  (Ruskin);  The 
Storming  of  the  Bastille  (Carlyle);  La  Gioconda,  etc.  (Pater);  Blois 
(Henry  James);  Spring  in  a  Side  Street  (Brander  Matthews). 

Exposition.       Edited   by    Prof.    Hammond    Lamont   of    Brown. 
xxiv-|-i8o  pp.     i6mo.     50c.,  net. 

Includes:  Development  of  a  Brief  ;  G.  C.  V.  Holmes  on  the  Steam- 
engine  ;  Huxley  on  the  Physical  Basis  of  Life  ;  Bryce  on  the  U.  S. 
Constitution  ;  "  The  Nation  "  on  the  Unemployed  ;  Matthew  Arnold 
on  Wordsworth  ;  etc. 

Argumentation.     Modern.     Edited  by  Prof.   Geo.   P.   Baker  of 
Harvard.      186  pp.      i6mo.      50c.,  7tet. 

Chatham  on  the  withdrawal  of  troops  from  Boston,  Lord  Mans- 
field's argument  in  the  Evans  case,  the  first  letter  of  Junius,  the  first 
of  Huxley's  American  addresses  on  evolution,  Erskine's  defence  of 
Lord  George  Gordon,  etc.,  and  specimen  brief. 

HFNRY     HOI   T     Rl     TO  29  W.  23d  St,  New  York. 

111.1>(1VI       l\KJ\^\      CX     K^\J.,     378  Wabash  Ave.,  Chicago, 
vii,  1900  4 


"  One  of  the  most  hnportant  hooks  on  Music  that  has  ever 
been  published." — W.  J.  Henderson,  Musical  Critic  of  ^.\, 
Times. 

LAVIGNAC'S   MUSIC   AND   MUSICIANS 


Translated  by  William  Marchant.  Edited  by  H.  E.  Krbhbiel. 
With  94  illustrations  and  510  examples  in  musical  notation.  2d 
Edition.     504  PP.     8vo.     $3.00. 

Dial :  "  If  one  had  to  restrict  his  musical  library  to  a  single  volume,  we 
doubt  whether  he  could  do  better  than  select  the  work  called  '  Music  and 
Musicians. '  .  .  .  We  find  in  this  new  volume  the  same  lucidity  of  e.xposi- 
tion,  the  same  economy  of  arrangement,  and  the  same  comprehensiveness, 
...  in  fact,  although  not  in  form,  a  veritable  encyclopaedia  of  music, 
and  will  be  found  equally  satisfactory  as  a  work  of  reference  and  as  a 
■  text-book  for  the  actual  study  of  counterpoint,  the  structure  of  instru- 
ments, the  history  of  music,  and  the  physical  basis  of  musical  production. 
A  few  supplementary  pages,  by  Mr.  H.  E.  Krehbiel,  add  American  com- 
posers to  M.  Lavignac's  list,  and  put  the  finishing  touch  of  usefulness 
upon  a  work  which  we  cordially  recommend  to  both  students  and  general 
readers." 

"It  is  impossible  to  speak  too  highly  of  this  volume"  (Literary 
Review,  Boston). — "The  most  comprehensive  reference-work  on  music 
published  in  a  single  volume  and  accessible  to  rtaders  of  English" 
(Revieiv  0/  Renieivs). — "An  encyclopaedia  from  which  all  manner  of 
curious  facts  may  be  drawn"  {Literary  World). — "A  musical  library 
in  itself "  (C/i/V<7^t>  Tribune). — "A  cyclopasdia  of  knowledge  concern- 
ing his  art"  {Christian  Register). — "It  adds  a  great  deal  that  the 
student  of  music  is  not  likely  to  get  elsewhere  "  \Spri>ig field  Re- 
publican).— "The  most  complete  and  perfect  work  of  its  kind"  (The 
L/onieJournal,  New  York). — "  For  the  musical  student  and  music  teacher 
invaluable  if  not  indispensable  "  (Buffalo  Commercial). — "He  has  ap- 
portioned his  pages  with  rare  good  judgment  "  (Churchman). — "  It  is  of 
all  things  thorough  "  (Brooklyn  Eagle). — "  There  is  nothing  superfi- 
cial about  it  "  (Hartford  Courant) — "  it  has  a  reliability  and  authority 
which  give  it  the  highest  value  "  (Chicago  Tribune). — "  Distinctly  scien- 
tific "  (Providence  Journal). — "  It  seems  to  have  been  his  desire  to  let  no 
interesting  topic  escape.  .  .  .  The  wonder  is  that  those  parts  of  the  book 
which  ought  to  be  dry  are  so  readable.  ...  A  style  which  can  fairly 
be  described  as  fascinating  "  [N.  Y.  Times). — "  Free  from  superfluous 
technicalities"  (Fro-z'idence Journal). — "  He  has  covered  the  field  with 
French  clarity  and  German  X.horo\xgh.r\es&''  (.Spring/ield  Republican). 
— "  Not  too  technical  to  be  exceedingly  useful  and  enjoyable  to  every 
intelligent  reader  "  (Hartford  Courant)  — "  Lightened  with  interesting 
anecdotes  "  (Brooklyn  Eagle). — "  He  writes  brilliantly  :  even  the  laziest 
or  most  indifferent  will  find  that  he  chains  the  attention  and  makes  a 
perusal  of  the  history  of  music  a  delightful  recreation  "  (A'^.  Y.  Home 
Journal). 

"  Capitally  indexed.  .  .  .  Mr.  Marchant  has  done  his  hard  task  of  trans- 
lating exceedingly  well"  (Transcript). — ".  .  .  The  pictures  of  the  instru- 
ments are  clear  and  helpful  "  (.N.  Y.  Times').— "An  unusually  handsome 
book"  (Musical  Record). — "This  superb  volume"  ('I he  Watchman). — 
"This  handsome  volume,  .  .  .  elegantly  printed  on  the  best  of  p^per, 
and  the  illustrations  are  numerous"  (Christian  Register). — "An  excellent 
translator  "  (Providence  Journal). — "  Well  translated  "  (School  and  Home 
Education)  —"  Vh.^  translation  is  excellent;  .  .  .  handsomely  bound  " 
(Hone  Journal), 

HhNKY     HULl     ex    CO.,    37$  Watash  Ave.,  Chicago 

MI  '99 


LUCAS'  THE  OPEN    ROAD 

A  little  book  for  wayfarers,  bicycle-wise  and  otherwise.  Compiled  by  E.  V. 
Lucas,  ll'ilh  illustrated  cover-linings.  Green  and  gold  flexible  covers. 
lamo.     f  1.50,  retail.  , 

Some  12c  poems  (mostly  complete)  and  25  prose  passages,  representing  over 
60  authors,  including  Fitzgerald,  Shelley,  Shakespeare,  Kenneth  Grahame, 
Stevenson.  Whitman,  Bliss  Carman,  Browning,  William  Watson,  Alice 
Meynel,  Keats,  Wordsworth,  Matthew  Arnold,  Tennyson,  William  Morris, 
Maurice'  Hewlett,  Isaak  Walton,  William  Barnes,  Herrick,  Gervase  Markham, 
Dobson,  Lamb,  Milton,  Whittier,  etc. 

Critic  :  "  The  selections  tell  of  farewells  to  winter  and  the  town,  of  spring 
and  the  beauty  of  the  earth,  of  lovers,  of  sun  and  cloud  and  the  windy  hills, 
of  birds,  blossoms,  and  trees— in  fact  of  everything  that  makes  work  well-nigh 
impossible  when  the  world  of  nature  begins  to  wake  from  its  long  sleep." 

Dial:  "A  very  charming  book  from  cover  to  cover.  .  .  .  some  things  are 
lacking,  but  all  that  there  is  is  good." 

Nezv  York  Tribune  :  "It  has  been  made  with  good  taste,  and  is  altogether 
a  capital  publication." 

London  Times  :  "  The  only  thing  a  poetry-loving  cyclist  could  allege  against 
the  book  is  that  its  fascinations  would  make  him  rest  too  long." 

LUCAS'  A  BOOK  OF  VERSES    FOR  CHILDREN 

Over  200  poems,  representing  some  80  authors.  With  title-page  and  cover- 
lining  pictures    n  color,  and  cover  in  colors  and  gilt. 

Revised  Edition.     i2mo.     $2.00,  retail. 

Critic  :  "  We  know  of  no  other  anthology  for  children  so  complete  and  well 
arranged." 

Poet  Lore :  "  A  child  could  scarcely  get  a  choicer  range  of  verse  to  roll  over 
in  his  mind,  or  be  coaxed  to  it  by  a  prettier  volume.  ...  A  book  to  take  note 
of  against  Christmas  and  all  the  birthday  gift  times  of  the  whole  year  round." 

BEERS'    ENGLISH    ROMANTICISM -xvul  cewtury 

Gilt  top.     455  pp.     j2mo.     $2.00,  retail. 

New  York  Commercial  A  dTer  User :  "The  individuality  of  his  style,  its 
humor,  its  color,  its  delicacy.  .  .  .  will  do  quite  as  much  to  continue  its 
author's  reputation  as  his  scholarship.  .  .  .  The  work  of  a  man  who  has 
studied  hard,  but  who  has  also  lived." 

Outlook  :  "  One  of  the  most  important  contributions  yet  made  to  literary 
history  by  an  American  scholar." 

New  York  Tribune  :  "  No  less  instructive  than  readable." 

Nation  :  "  Always  interesting.  .  .  .  On  the  whole  may  be  commended  as  an 
excellent  popular  treatment  of  the  special  subject  of  the  literary  revival  of 
medievalism  in  the  eighteenth  century  in  England." 

Literature  :  "  His  analyses  are  clear  and  profound.  ...  A  notable  example 
of  the  best  type  of  unpedantic  literary  scholarship." 

HANCOCK'S  THE  FRENCH  REVOLUTION 
AND  THE  ENGLISH  POETS 

With  an  introduction,  on  Historical  Criticism  as  an  aid  to  appreciation,  by 
Professor  Lewis  E.  Gates  of  Harvard,     xvi  +  197  pp.     umo.     $1.25,  retail. 

Review  oy  Reviews :  "A  very  interesting  study.  .  .  .  He  takes  up  the 
thread  of  English  romanticism  where  Professor  Beers  drops  it." 

Outlook:  "  It  has  a  scholar's  orderliness,  clearness  of  method,  and  contin- 
uity. .  .  .  Students  .  .  .  will  be  quick  to  recognize  the  conscientious  work- 
manship of  his  volume,  and  its  insight  into  the  spiritual  development  of  a 
group  of  the  foremost  English  poets  of  the  century." 

HENRY   HOLT  &  CO.,   New  York 


WORKS  ON  ENGLISH    HISTORY. 

HENDERSON'S   SIDE-LIGHTS  ON    ENGLISH    HISTORY 

Edited  by  ERNEST  F.  HENDERSON,  author  of  "The  History 
of  Germany  in  the  Middle  Aj;es,"  etc.,  with  80  full-page 
illustrations.    300  pp.    Quarto.    $5.00  «<?/",  special. 

An  elaborate  effort  towards  vitalizing  the  study  of  English 
history.  Such  topics  as  the  personality  of  Queen  Elizabeth  ; 
the  execution  of  Mary  Stuart  ;  characteristic  traits  of  Crom- 
well;  the  return  of  Charles  \\.\  the  Stuarts  in  exile;  Queen 
Anne  and  the  Marlboroughs,  etc.,  are  illustrated  by  a  wealth 
of  extracts  from  contemporary  records,  all  arranged  to  give 
the  effect  of  a  continuous  history.  These,  with  the  illustra- 
tions (portraits,  facsimiles,  caricatures,  etc.),  reproduced 
from  the  rarest  originals,  form  perhaps  one  of  the  most 
notable  bodies  of  illustrative  material  ever  placed  before  the 
American  student  of  history. 

Neiv  York  Tribune:  "It  is  not  unlikely  that  he  who  has 
dipped  into  this  book  in  the  early  afternoon  will  find  himself 
still  reading  when  night  comes  ....  a  better  book  to  put  in 
the  hands  of  the  lover  of  history,  whether  he  be  a  beginner  or 
an  old  student,  we  do  not  know." 

LEE'S  SOURCE  BOOK  OF  ENGLISH  HISTORY 

Edited  by  Dr.  Guy  Carleton  Lee  of  Johns  Hopkins.  600 
pp.    Large  i2mo. 

The  texts  of  the  most  important  legal  and  constitutional 
documents  from  the  earliest  Saxon  code  to  the  last  treaty 
between  the  British  and  the  Boers.  Besides  copious  illustra- 
tive material  from  Herodotus  to  date,  and  a  working  bibli- 
ography, that  furnishes  a  clew  to  every  important  MS.  and 
printed  document  upon  English  history.  The  selections  are 
full  of  human  interest,  and  equally  valuable  for  the  general 
reader,  the  student,  the  library,  and  the  classroom. 

GRAHAM'S  ENGLISH   POLITICAL   PHILOSOPHY 

From  Hobbes  to  Maine.  By  Prof.  William  Graham,  of 
Queen's  College,  Belfast,  author  of  "The  Creed  of  Science," 
"Socialism  New  and  Old,"  etc.  xxx  +  415  pp.  8vo.  $3.00 
net,  special. 

A  brilliant  epitome  and  criticism  of  the  chief  works  of  the 
period  on  the  subject.    In  this  work  the  author  endeavors 
first  to  give  a  compact  but  connected  account  of  the  political 
theories  of  the  greater  English  political  thinkers  from  the 
days  of  Hobbes,  and  secondly  to  distinguish  what  is  perma- 
nently true  from  what  is  doubtful  or  erroneous,  with  the  end 
of  finally  producing  something  like  an  Introduction  to  Politi- 
cal Science,  resting  on  authority  and  reason  combined. 
Prof. John   W.  Burgess  of  Columbia:  "I  consider  it  the  best 
work  on  the  subject  ever  published  in  the  English  language. 
I  have  no  doubt  it  will  be  extensively  used  in  all  the  universi- 
ties of  this  country." 

HENRY   HOLT  &  CO.    ^^  ^^^^^^^o^r^^' 


RINGWALT'S  AMERICAN  ORATORY 

Selections,  with  introduction  and  notes,  by  Ralph  C.  Ring- 
WALT,  formerly  Instructor  in  Columbia  University.  334  pp. 
i2mo.       $1.00,  net. 

Contains  Schurz's  General  Amnesty,  Jeremiah  S.  Black's 
Trial  by  Jury,  Phillips's  Daniel  0'  Connell,  Depew's  Inaugura- 
tion of  Washington,  Curtis's  The  Leadership  of  Educated  Men, 
Henry  W.  Grady's  The  New  South,  and  Beecher's  The  Sepul- 
chre in  the  Garden. 

F.  N.  Scott,  Professor  in  the  University  of  Michigan  ;  "  An 
extremely  sensible  book." 

D.  L.  Maulsby,  Professor  in  Tufts  College,  Mass.  :  "  The 
opening  essay  is  the  best  on  its  subject  that  I  have  seen  of  re- 
cent years.  It  shows  grasp  pn  both  the  early  and  later  litera- 
ture of  the  subject,  and  is  thoroughly  alive  to  modern 
conditions." 

A.  G.  Newcomer,  Professor  in  Leland  Stanford  University  : 
"  The  essay  on  the  theory  of  oratory  is  one  of  the  most  sensible 
and  at  the  same  time  stimulating  essays  of  the  kind  I  have 
ever  seen." 

Ralph  W.  Thomas,  Professor  in  Colgate  University:  "It  is 
a  work  that  the  individual  student  should  have  constantly  at 
hand." 


WAGNER'S  MODERN  POLITICAL  ORATIONS    (British) 
Edited  by  Leopold  Wagner,  xv  +  344  pp.   i2mo.   $1.00,  net. 

A  collection  of  some  of  the  most  notable  examples  of  the  po- 
litical oratory  of  the  present  reign.  Includes  Brougham  on  Ne- 
gro Emancipation;  Fox  and  Cobden  on  the  Corn  Laws;  Bright 
on  the  Suspension  of  Habeas  Corpus  Act;  Butt  and  Morley  on 
Home  Rule;  Gladstone  on  the  Beaconsfield  Ministry;  Parnell 
on  the  Coercion  Bill;  and  others  b\-  Beaconsfield,  Russell,  Ran- 
dolph Churchill,  Chamberlain,  Macaulay,  Bulwer-Lytton, 
Cowen,  Bradlaugh,  McCarthy,  etc.,  etc. 


HENRY   HOLT   ^   CO.     ^^  T^ew^^^r^'^^* 

VII,    1900 


''^  I  do  not  know  where  else,  within  the  limits,  to  find  so  delightful 
a  selection  of  noble  poems:'— Prof.  Thomas  R.  Price  of  Columbia. 

PANCOAST'S  STANDARD  ENGLISH  POEMS 


From  Spenser  to  Tennyson.  Selected  and  edited  by  HENRY 
S.  Pancoast,  author  of  An  Introduction  to  English  Litera- 
ture, etc.    749  pp.    i6mo.    $1.50,  7iet. 

Some  250  complete  poems,  besides  selections  from  such  long 
poems  as  "The  Faerie  Queene,"  "  Childe  Harold's  Pilgrim- 
age," etc. 

There  are  ig  pages  of  Ballads,  33  of  Spenser,  22  of  Elizabethan 
Songs  and  Lyrics,  16  of  Elizabethan  Sonnets,  51  of  Seven- 
teenth Century  Songs,  51  of  verse  from  Dryden  to  Thomson, 
277  of  verse  from  Thomson  to  Tennyson,  and  100  of  Victorian 
verse,  164  of  Notes  (chiefly  biographical  and  appreciative), 
and  an  index  of  titles. 

New  York  Tribune  :  "  We  believe  it  will  be  received  cordially 
by  all  lovers  of  poetr)%  whether  elementary  students  or  not.  Basing 
his  selections  on  the  individual  excellence  and  historic  importance 
of  the  poems,  the  editor  has  not  allowed  his  fidelity  to  the  latter  test 
to  overrule  his  taste,  and  there  is  very  little  matter  in  the  book 
which  is  historically  significant  alone.  First  and  last,  this  is  an 
anthology  of  the  best  poetry." 

Prof.  Henry  A.  Beers  of  Yale,  author  of  "English  Romanticism  in 
the  Eighteenth  Century,"  etc.:  "  The  collection  seems  to  me  in  gen- 
eral made  with  excellent  judgment,  and  the  notes  are  sensible,  help- 
ful, and  not  too  weitlduftg." 

Prof.  Albert  S.  Cook  of  Yale  :  "A  thoroughly  good  selection,  and 
the  notes  are  judicious,  so  far  as  I  have  examined." 

Prof.  William  Hand  Browne  of  Johns  Hopkins:  "The  scope  is 
amply  wide,  and  the  selections  as  judicious  as  was  possible  under  the 
limitations.  The  notes,  judging  from  a  hasty  glance,  seem  full  and 
clear." 

Prof.  Charles  W.  Kent  of  the  University  of  Virginia  :  "  Contain.? 
nearly  all  the  poems  I  would  wish  in  such  a  volume  and  very  few 
that  I  would  readily  dispense  with." 

Prof.  James  M.  Dixon  of  Washington  University:  "It  is  just 
such  a  handy  volume  as  can  be  made,  by  a  sympathetic  teacher,  a 
companion  to  the  scholar  for  life." 

HENRY     HOI  T    8^     TO  29W.  23d  St,  New  York 

IIL^lMVl      llWLl      ex    \^\J.,     378  Wabash  Ave.,  Chicago 

i  Z900 


PANCOAST'S  INTRODUCTION  TO  ENGLISH 
LITERATURE 

By  IIf.nry  S.  Pancoast.     556  pp.      i2mo      $1.25  net, 

"  It  asumes  a  study  of  and  not  about  English  literature; 
it  assumes  that  one  author  differeth  from  another  in  glory 
and  influence,  and  that  in  an  introductory  course  only 
those  of  predominant  influence  can  be  studied." — Prof, 
E.  E.  Wentworth,  Vassar  College. 

"  It  treats  of  movements — is  not  merely  a  catalogue  of 
names  and  a  record  of  critical  ratings.  Not  even  the 
dullest  pupil  can  study  it  without  feeling  the  historical 
and  logical  continuity  of  English  literature." — Nation. 

It  describes  the  political  and  social  conditions  of  the 
successive  periods  ;  notes  foreign  as  well  as  domestic  in- 
fluences ;  emphasizes  the  relations  of  literature  to  history. 

"  Its  criticism  is  of  a  kind  to  stimulate  investigation 
rather  than  to  supplant  it." — A.  J.  George,  Newton 
{Mass.)  High  School. 

The  nineteenth  centu/y,  for  the  first  time  in  such  a 
book,  receives  its  fair  share  of  attention. 

In  style  it  is  "  interesting,"  says  Prof.  Winchester  of 
Wesleyan  University  {Conn.),  "  readable  and  stimulating," 
says  Prof.  Hart  of  Cornell,  "  interesting  and  sensible," 
says  Prof.  Sampson  of  Indiana  University,  "  attractive," 
says  Prof.  Gilmore  of  Rochester  University,  "well  writ- 
ten," says  Prof.  Czarnomska  of  Stnith  College. 

It  is  fully  equipped  with  teaching  apparatus.  The 
"  Study  Lists  "  give  references  for  collateral  reading,  and, 
in  the  case  of  the  most  suitable  works,  hints  and  sugges- 
tive questions.  Comparative  chronological  tables,  a 
literary  map  of  England,  and  a  plan  of  Shakespeare*s 
London  are  included. 

HHNRY    HOI  T    <S/    TO     29  w.  23d  st.,  new  york 

ii..9^  ^^  '      378  Wabash  Ave.,  CHICAGO 


Pancoast's  Introduction  to  American  Literature. 

By  Hexry  S.  Pancoast,  author  of  "  Representative  English  Literature." 
xii4-393pp.     i6mo.     $i.oo. 

The  primary  aim  is  to  help  the  pupil  to  approach  certain 
typical  works  in  the  right  spirit,  and  to  understand  and  enjoy 
them.  He  is  led  to  observe  the  origin  and  history  of  the 
literature  and  the  forces  which  have  helped  to  shape  and 
develop  it  ;  he  is  taught  to  regard  literature  as  a  p.'irt  of 
national  history,  and  to  relate  it  to  contemporaneous  events 
and  social  conditions.  He  is  made  to  take  up  the  works 
suggested  for  study  in  their  chronological  sequence,  and  to 
note  their  relations  to  each  other  and  to  their  time. 

In  the  sketches  of  the  few  leading  writers  selected  for  com- 
paratively extended  treatment  the  effort  is  to  avoid  dry 
biographical  details,  and  to  present  each  author  as  a  distinct 
living  person.  In  the  critical  portion  the  object  is  rather  to 
stimulate  appreciation  and  lead  the  student  to  judge  for  him- 
self than  to  force  opinions  on  him  in  a  purely  dogmatic  spirit. 

J.  M.  Hart,  Professor  in  Cornell  \      A.   G.   Newcomer,  Professor  in 


University  : — Seems  to  me  to  ac 
complish  exactly  what  it  attempts; 
it  introduces  the  reader  carefully 
and  systematically  to  the  subject. 
The  several  chapters  are  well 
proportioned,  and  the  tone  of  the 
entire  work  is  one  of  kindly  and 
enlightened  sympathy. 

Edwin  M.  Hopkins,  Professo 
in  the  University  of  Kansas  : — It 
seems  to  me  fully  entitled  to  take 
rank  with  his  English  Literature 
as  a  text-book,  and  I  shall  at  once 
place  it  on  my  list  recommended 
for  high-school  work. 

The  Nation  -.—Quite  the  best 
brief  manual  of  its  subject  that 
we  know.  .  .  .  National  traits  are 
well  brought  out  without  neglect 


Leland  Stanford  University  : — He 
succeeds  in  saying  the  just  and 
needful  thing  without  being  tempt- 
ed beyond,  and  students  of  the 
work  can  hardly  fail  to  obtain  the 
right  profit  from  our  literature 
and  the  right  attitude  toward  it. 

H.  Humphrey  Neill,  Professor 
in  Amherst  College  .'—Having  used 
Mr.  Pancoast's  book  on  English 
Literature  for  three  years  with  my 
class,  I  know  about  what  to  ex- 
pect from  the  present  volume,  and 
am  sure  it  will  fill  the  place  de- 
manded in  the  teaching  of  Amer- 
ican Literature  which  his  other 
book  so  well  fills  in  the  teaching 
of  English  Literature. 

The  Dial: — We  find  in  the  vol- 
ume now  before  us  the  same  well- 


ing organic  connections  with  the  1  chosen  diction,  sobriety  of  judg- 
mother  country.  Forces  and  \  ment,  and  sense  of  perspective 
movements  are  as  well  handled  j  that  characterized  its  predecessor, 
as  personalities,  the  influence  of  1  We  should  say  that  no  better  book 
writers  hardly  less  than  their  in-  j  had  yet  been  produced  for  use  in 
dividuality,  I  our  secondary  schools. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  LOS  ANGELES 
THE  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 

This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below 


'OV  3  0  194S 

^EB  111946 

WIAR  2  7  m1\ 

JAN  15  1948 
M^  2  0  19* 

FEB  2  11958 
APR  2  6  1950 


Form  L-B 
»m-2,'43(5205) 


SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  UBRARY  FACILITY 


A  A      000  296  379    i 


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% 


